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ON THE OTHER SIDE OE THE BRIDGE 


By the same author 

I Choose 

Yet Speaketh He 

Roses from My Garden 

Above the Shame of Circumstance 

The House of Landell 

Where the Sun Shines 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF 
THE BRIDGE 


BY 

GERTRUDE CAPEN WHITNEY 

1 . 



BOSTON 

THE FOUR. SEAS COMPANY 
1922 


Copyright, ig22, hy 

The Four Seas Company 


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The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 


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Dedicated 

TO 

Most of Us 

Whose Spirit, ranging over both sides of the bridge of society 
and of life, concentrates the Power and the Glory of 
its Essence in the little duties of the every day. 

May light shine upon the land and sea of our Endeavor. 




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ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 

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CHAPTER I 


T he train rushed swiftly through rock-bound 
middle New England, from the lake country 
of Vermont into central Massachusetts, the crooning 
of its song making accompaniment for the thoughts 
of one of the passengers who sat almost motionless, 
as mile after mile was left behind. 

Simultaneously with the pause of the rune of the 
wheels, the train with a jarring jerk drew up at a 
bustling station. There was the usual clashing of 
doors, the hailing of train officials, the exit and 
entrance of travelers; then the train settled down 
to its rune again; the passenger to an inspection 
of newcomers. 

Looking wdth interest from one to another, her 
eyes rested upon a young woman taking a seat in 
front of her. She was simply dressed, and swung 
her grip into the rack like one accustomed to taking 
care of herself; withal, there was a grim, set look 
about her beautiful mouth, a frightened stare in her 
wonderful eyes. 

As the conductor came down the aisle, she opened 
her purse; a pitifully thin one; the observer saw 
this by the reflection in the car mirror. 

Tendering her ticket, she closed the pocket book 
with a vicious click and tossed it with a despairing 
accent upon the seat. 

“I’ve nothing left but grit!” 

She spoke aloud, forgetful of human ears, or 
perhaps assuming that the rumble of the train would 

9 


10 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


drown her voice. But her tones were clear and 
carrying. They caught and gripped the attention 
of the observer. 

“I’ve nothing left but grit!” 

As the sentence floated back it was held by the 
listener, who, reading a tragedy through the mirror, 
saw the look of terror accompanying the words; 
the wide, frightened eyes flxed, unseeing, on the 
landscape that sped ruthlessly by as if running away 
to avoid some dreadful horror. 

The little purse bobbed helplessly on the cushion, 
neglected by its owner, whose every thought was 
strangling in tentacles of distress. Finally, urged 
by the swinging of the train, it slipped through the 
back of the seat to the floor. The observer leaned 
forward and secured it. 

Yes, it was thin; pitifully thin. As she regarded 
it sympathetically, again the monody floated to her 
ears from the lips of the girl; an obligato to the 
noise of the rushing train. 

“I’ve nothing left but grit!” 

Sympathetically, the observer’s eyes rested on the 
purse. The train was nearing her destination; the 
brakes were being applied. There was no time to 
question. She opened the receptacle. It was empty. 

Quickly she slipped into its keeping three crisp, 
twenty-dollar bills. 

The train stopped. As she left the car, she laid 
the pocket-book in the young girl’s lap. 

“It is yours, is it not?” 

A radiant smile, and she was gone. 


CHAPTER II 


^^yTYRA HARNDON looked up and, with a 
mechanical “I thank you,” gazed blankly after 
the retiring passenger, following her with strained 
eyes that looked without seeing until, far down the 
platform of the station, she lost her in the surging 
to and fro of the moving crowds. 

As she slipped the bit of leather into her hand bag, 
she felt, more keenly than ever, the horrors of her 
position. Added thereto was a sharp mental warn- 
ing that she must act promptly if she would not be 
inextricably enmeshed in them. 

Pitilessly she rehearsed her situation, taking grim 
delight in inflicting keen anguish upon herself as 
she brought out in high lights the agonizing picture 
stencilled on her mind. If, by chance, she slipped 
any terrible detail, she hastened to recapitulate ; 
analyzing and dissecting every circumstance bearing 
on, leading to, and builded in the present condition 
of her affairs. 

Having spent some time in this mental inquisition, 
she stiffened in her seat and clutched its arms. 

What was the use, she scored herself, of going 
over and over what she already knew! Why waste 
brain fibre, reiterating what any simpleton could 
understand in one recital! Why not grasp at some 
rope of safety instead of wallowing in a mental 
marsh that was sucking her strength and killing 

II 


12 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


her courage? She could state the situation in a 
very few words. She and her mother were on the 
verge of beggary. She must have sixty dollars to 
avert immediate disaster. What if they had been 
, comfortable once ; they were not so now. Had she 
not let her mind slip, matters might have been differ- 
ent. Why permit it to stay asleep, or drugged with 
worry and retrospection! What if there were not 
a dollar to pay the rent and they were to be thrown 
out of the poor place they were calling home; what 
if she had lost her position. Would poisoning her 
mind and body in wailing about it, help them? No! 
She was determined to take to her mother through 
fine thinking and fine action, some antidote to the 
misery of the apparent facts. 

For some minutes she ceased to wrestle with her 
problems. Her eyes rested on the hills, those 
strange upheavals of nature the train was passing, 
rising out of the ground like giant balls, often with 
no talus to herald their coming or their passing. 
Out of the hills to which he raised his eyes, came 
strength, the prophet said. Out of the hills! 
Strength ! 

As her mind rested on them they revealed to her 
new form and purpose. No longer did they appear 
inanimate masses, but large grapes of plenty bloom- 
ing along vines — the winding rivers ; with leaves, the 
fruitful meadows, spread out on either side. Plenty; 
refreshment; strength! Surely with such sustain- 
ing, she could visualize pleasanter pictures, mould 
finer patterns than those now forming in her mind. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 13 


Why not clear out the old art gallery; rebuild the 
mouldy room which wrong thinking had constructed 
for her and be transformed through thinking only 
what she wanted evidenced? 

She caught up a newspaper a former passenger 
had left upon the seat, and pencilled on its margin, 

The hills lie grouped about the river, winding deep, 

Like mammoth grapes upon their parent stem; 

The pastures lie like leaves outspread in sun. 

The ambient light surrounding them. 

The blue of pine and hemlock is their bloom; 

Their wine exudes elixir in the air; 

To them who cry for beauty, such are fed. 

Who cry for help, lo! help is there! 

And again. 

New forms from past experience grow. 

Express the essence from the roses; 

Let the old shapes go. 

Moving between the hills, her soul expanded; 
caught visions for her mind to formulate and her 
body to express. Fond of rhyming her thoughts 
in rhythm to motion, she found herself singing 
courage into her heart to the rocking of the swing- 
ing train and the sway of her own body. Always, 
the word grit sought companions in lilt of couplet 
or quatrain. As the cars jarred heavily over the 
increasing network of tracks near the metropolis, 
this impulse became insistent and expressed itself 
in doggerel phrase: 

‘T have something more than grit; 

I’ve grit, with wit to sharpen it.” 

And again, in syncopated measure: 


14 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“I have something more than grit; 

And more than wit to sharpen it. 

I’ve sixty dollars, mine today. 

For wit and grit have found a way.” 

She wondered at herself for swaying from despair 
to doggerel, but somehow she was comforted. The 
frightened stare was melting from her eyes ; the fine 
lips losing their tremor. There was an alluring lilt 
at their comers. 

The sunshine streamed in at a window and shone 
disturbingly into her face. As she rose to lower 
the shade, a trinket near the seat, recently vacated, 
arrested her attention. It was a small onyx pin set 
with a diamond. Perhaps it had once been an ear- 
ring. It must belong to the one who returned her 
purse. Too bad to lose it; it was a pretty little 
thing, and strangely familiar; though why, she could 
not imagine. She would report the loss at the 
station. Had she money, she would advertise; but 
she had none. 

She checked this backsliding into destructive 
thought by singing, to the rhythm of the train: 

“I’ve more than grit; I’ve more than wit; 

I’ve grit, with God to nourish it.” 

The train lumbered over the network of tracks 
to the shed. Myra alighted and walked up the long 
platform. 

She walked slowly, disinclined to face the heat 
outside, for it was midsummer, the city was in the 
grip of a hot wave, and it was a long walk to the 
far end of town. 

Her mind was growing calm; a sense of possession 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 15 

dominated her, though why she did not know. Her 
song was growing in strength, rhythmic with the 
movement of her graceful body, and in the dignity 
of choral harmonies : 

“It is mine; sixty dollars and God; 

Yea, God; and His supply.” 

Her intense and, latterly, her constructive con- 
centration of the morning had stimulated her powers 
of observation. As she passed through the station, 
she saw much she had never noticed before. One 
thing was a booth connected with the Travelers’ 
Aid and the North American Civic League of Immi- 
gration. Immigrants were thronging about it and 
one worried man was trying to respond to all 
demands. She knew vaguely, from half scanned 
paragraphs in the newspapers, that he was attempt- 
ing to distribute this horde of human beings to their 
destinations, or, if they had none, to sections of the 
country suiting their nationalities, qualifications, 
and climatic habitat. How she longed to ask him 
for 2 i job such as he was placing in the way of these 
canaille — no, not canaille, but human beings, like 
herself. 

After a while her interest in the seething masses 
of humanity led her to ask a few well directed ques- 
tions. The man responded pleasantly. A quicks 
discerning glance, then: 

“I wish you were helping here. We are rushed 
to death. It is vacation for some and others are 
ill. You are equal to the work. You haven’t asked 
a single fool question. Since the War, there is a 


16 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


pitiful mixture of better quality with the usual 
steerage. You can help if you will. Would you 
consider the place? It will only be for two weeks 
till the force gets together again.” 

“I wish I felt competent.” 

“Oh, that’s all right. If you are willing, go over 
and talk to that man. Tell him what I say. I can’t 
hire you; but there’s no reason I shouldn’t recom- 
mend you, do you think so? Just look at them 
pouring in!” 

He turned to greet a new inflow of immigrants, 
which, like the big wave after the rhythmic pause 
of the ocean’s swell, surged up to the stand. 

Myra was sent from one official to another; but 
the need was great; and, surprised to learn that 
necessity can cut the threads even of red tape, found 
herself examined, accepted, and told to report to the 
booth. 

“Your salary is thirty dollars a week,” she was 
told. “We shall need you only a fortnight. You 
will be required to wear both badges, that of the 
Travelers’ Aid and the Civic League of Immigration. 
The two have run together; but we are thinking of 
separating them.” 

Her sixty dollars! and its acquisition was so 
natural that she received her appointment without 
surprise. 

“I can stay here two hours, now,” she told Mr. 
Marks at the booth. “Then I must attend to some 
personal matters. I will return promptly.” 

“Before you go, see that that pretty girl over there 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 17 


gets into the right hands. Those good looking white 
slave traders hanging about are pretending they are 
her cousins. It is easy to deceive a lonely frightened 
girl in a strange land by means of old or badly taken 
photographs. We know these men but can’t prove 
anything against them. Then there is that fat 
Neapolitan, Judith Orono, sitting on her baggage 
as big as a divan. She must be in Waterloo before 
night. She can’t go alone. Probably after you get 
there you won’t find anybody at the address she 
gives you. There almost never is. It will be up to 
you to make provision for her safety in that event. 
Some people are as helpless as wood.” 

Myra hastened toward the pretty girl the agent 
had designated. Timid and questioning, she stood 
looking alternately at a handful of photographs and 
then at the men about her. 

Myra went up to the group. 

“Let me see those pictures,” she said pleasantly. 
“You know, men, these are not — ” She was talking 
to the empty air. The men had vanished like evil 
vapors into the crowd. Even as they disappeared 
a withered little woman with honest face pressed 
her way toward the girl. 

“Gretchen, it is your grandmother! Oh! But you 
are pretty, child!” 

Myra quickly selected a photograph from those 
in Gretchen’s hand, and compared it with the face 
before her. “It is all right,” cheerily. “Hug her 
well. Grandma. She has come far to see you, and 
it might have been she did not find you.” 


CHAPTER III 


TJ AVING satisfied herself as to the safety of the 
pretty young immigrant Myra walked down 
the station toward the exit. She shrank from the 
long walk to the far end of the city in the scorching 
sunshine, and how to be back at the booth at the 
promised time, she did not see. 

Almost insensibly her inclination drew her toward 
the automobile stand, until she stood beneath the 
cool, arched roof, under which were grouped vehicles 
for bodily comfort and rapid transit. 

“I am like a drunkard, money gone, feasting his 
desires through the windows of a saloon,” grimly; 
“Feast that way, then, and much good may it do! 
Then on your way by foot, and face necessity.” 

Again her mind clutched at the horrors of her 
position. Her mother had written that the rent was 
long since due; the agent had threatened to turn 
her into the streets. He was to be at the fiat at 
twelve o’clock that day for the money or to evict 
her — and where was she to go! 

“Rent evictions are frequent in New York; why 
not here! We have liked to be fashionable; here 
is a fine opportunity for publicity. Headlines in the 
daily papers with pictures of mother and me: Mrs. 
Julius Hamdon and her daughter of the smart set 
head today’s eviction list in the slums of their native 
city!” 

i8 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 19 


Automatically she felt for a ring. She used to 
have so many; surely one was left to exchange for 
rent and supper! Knowing they were bare of orna- 
ment, she continued to feel the fingers feverishly. 

“Don’t mind!” trying to be brave. “Don’t be blind 
to God and His supply. Hold on to your grit!” 

A volume of dust whirled densely about her, 
stirred by a vagrant breeze, eddying through the 
arched entrance and sweeping dust and silt in a 
dizzying spiral; gyrating along the ground like a 
creature of the myths. Inside the arches it con- 
centrated as through a funnel and enveloped Myra 
as a centre. When it had swirled onward, she found 
herself covered with dust and blinded by the grit 
that had blown into her face. 

She laughed a little notwithstanding that her 
eyes were smarting severely. 

“Is my prayer going by contraries? I ask to see, 
and am blinded. I ask for mental grit and am en- 
veloped with material grit.” 

Fumbling with the fingers that, just now, had re- 
fused to give up rings, she searched in her hand bag 
for her handkerchief. Her sense of touch alert, the 
first thing they felt was the puny little purse. She 
was about to push it away irritably, when a slight 
ridge in the leather arrested her attention. 

“It feels as if there were something inside!” 

Byes still smarting with dust; blinded, temporarily 
with grit and pain, she took hold of the leather and 
pinched it. 

“It teaches one to grip disappointment by the 


20 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


hand to hold an empty purse/' scolfingly. “Hush!” 
severely, “Trusting and sneering do not go well 
together. Look for God’s supply. Look and look 
again, until you find it!” 

Fingers keenly alert, she felt again of the little 
purse lying supinely in her palm, her whole body 
quivering with the significance of the message her 
fingers were receiving. Several snappings up and 
down of her eyelids to clear them of final bits of 
dirt, and she unfastened the clasp of the little re- 
ceptacle. There, inside, were three crisp twenty- 
dollar bills, ready to enter actively into the world of 
change and exchange. 

A wave of relief and joy swept through her being, 
and her soul sang her infinite gratitude. 

Her close communion with the Infinite in the 
hours preceding this discovery had lifted her out of 
the attitude of puzzling and seeking into that of 
accepting. It held her in it, now, as she looked down 
upon the crisp new bills. She gave actually no 
thought as to where the money came from. Like 
the man in the Bible she who was blind, saw; she 
who was hungry, was being fed . . . The doubting 
whisperers of her tradition, the doubting Thomas 
of her reason, had not yet awakened to sneer in- 
sidiously: He believes himself a God! crucify Him; 
or to put a finger into the nail-print of her mani- 
festation. 

She put up her hand to signal a cab, but dropped 
it. What right had she to ride, if she did dread the 
walk and despise the elevated! She lived in that 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 21 


part of the city, now, where life and the elevated 
are inseparable; where her mother had moved in 
their misfortune. Misfortune! Perhaps like the 
blindness and the grit the misfortune was a blessing 
in disguise. As to a motor, she must take one in 
order to be back at the booth in time. Necessity 
sometimes compels luxury. She put up her hand 
definitely and a motor drew up beside her. 

Settled comfortably in the cab and rumbling 
toward home, question and doubt fell heavily into 
stupor again, and gratitude expressed itself in her 
heart. She had sixty dollars for rent; incidental 
expenses safe for a few days; thirty dollars a week 
for a fortnight! Then reckoning ceased, as she 
sang her gratitude into metrical form in rhythm 
with the motion of the car. Stealing upon her con- 
sciousness were the words of that rare, strong hymn, 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is, 

His mercy faileth never. 

I nothing lack, for I am His, 

And he is mine, forever.” 

She was surprised when the motor stopped. She 
sprang out and paid the chauffeur, after some 
grumbling on his part at having to release much 
small coin in change for a twenty-dollar bill. 

Speeding up the stairs to the top suite, she ran 
into her mother’s arms, crying, “Mamsee, Mamsee, 
I am here!” 

Her mother’s shoulders, stooped with care, 
straightened as the healthy, happy face of the 
daughter looked encouragingly into hers. After a 
minute, hesitatingly, she said: 


22 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


“Dearie, it is dreadful to speak of it so soon; but 
that man will be here in half an hour; and what 
are we to say to him, my dear, my dear!” 

“Tell him, dearest, that ‘The Lord of Love, our 
Shepherd is,* and prove it by handing him his 
money.*’ 

Myra opened her bag and flourished the crisp, 
new bills and the small coins before her mother’s 
astonished eyes; a lavish display, indeed, since the 
chauffeur’s change was largely in nickels and dimes. 

“Where did you get it! You wrote such a heart- 
broken letter, saying you had lost your place and 
had just enough to get home and not a penny over. 
Yet you arrive in a motor, with the happy face of a 
beautiful seraph, and waving about money as if you 
were master of the mint. Where did you get it?” 

Myra stopped weaving the bills and stood trans- 
fixed. 

“Where did you get it, Myra?” 

“I don’t know;” then, definitely, “God sent it to 
me.” 

“Nonsense — that is, we all know God sends us 
everything; but he uses material means. By what 
means did you get this?” 

“I — I — honestly. Mother, I don’t know.” 

"'Don't know!” 

A sharp menace of reprimand cut like steel 
through the mother’s well modulated voice. 

“Myra, I shall not give this money to the agent 
on any such slight tenure of ownership.” Then, in 
despair, “Child, where did you get it? The man will 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 23 


be here in a few minutes. He has been so often, 
and is so terrible, I dread the sight of him; but I 
will not give him the money until I know what right 
I have to it!” 

“Mother, believe me!” Myra was greatly dis- 
tressed. “Believe me, God sent it.” 

“Did someone give it to you, dear?” Mrs. Harndon 
suddenly realized that she was transmitting her 
anxiety to her daughter, and strove to calm herself. 
“Tell me about it!” 

“I only know, Mother, that I got bn to the train 
with nothing in my purse but my ticket ; not a penny 
over. When I opened it in the station I found three 
twenty-dollar bills.” 

“Was the purse out of your possession at any 
time?” 

Myra started. 

“Yes, it was. After I gave my ticket to the con- 
ductor, the poor little thing looked so anaemic it 
made me sick! I tossed it on to the seat and forgot 
all about it till a passenger returned it to me. It 
must have wriggled off the cushion into her section.” 

“Had you any conversation with her?” 

“None whatever — ” she stopped suddenly, then, 
“Do you suppose — you know my habit of talking 
out loud when things disturb me or when I am 
puzzling over matters! I was too miserable to 
realize someone might overhear me. I do recall 
that, as I tossed the purse away from me, I gave 
vent to my terror in the words, ‘Tve nothing left 


24 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


but grit.* Do you suppose — Mother, do you 
suppose — ” 

The mother’s eyes grew grave and deep. She 
ceased her demands as to the source of the money 
and was silent. 

“It is as you say, Daughter. God did send it.” 

“I grew so assured after a while that we had 
sufficient for the rent,. and a way out of our terrible 
mix-up, that it did not seem strange to find the 
money there. My only thought was gratitude. No 
surprise came into my mind until it entered yours; 
though I did have dust thrown into my eyes before 
I could see.” 

Humorously she told her mother about the little 
whirlwind and its results. 

“I gained vision through the very cause that 
appeared to obscure it. What sight did not tell me, 
feeling did. We don’t half use our capabilities, do 
we!” she concluded. “For that reason, often they 
never become faculties.” 

“You have been face to face with a miracle.” 

“Not as opposed to law, Mamsee! My deep con- 
centration opened my mind to the natural law of 
supply and demand as never before. Really, it’s 
the first time I ever applied myself to consider the 
law. That I had wonderful success is as a prop to 
my faith. Not to be irreverent, gamblers have good 
luck, first-off. I have something else to tell you.” 

She explained her reason for driving from the 
station and her promise to return to the Travelers’ 
Aid and the Civic League of Immigration. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 25 


“We have the rent, and our livelihood for two 
weeks, and I have a will more keen than ever before 
to getting a job.” 

“Myra!” shivered Mrs. Harndon. 

“Yes, a jobV* 

A sharp ring at the doorbell made Mrs. Hamdon 
turn pale. 

“Why quiver. Mother dear, we have the rent.” 

“He has been here so often and he looks so cruel.” 

“He can not hurt us. The Lord of Love, our 
shepherd is.” 

Myra walked firmly to the tube in the entrance 
hall and released the lock on the street door. In 
a moment there appeared, toiling up the several 
flights of stairs, in too breathless a condition to be 
at all formidable to the calm, vigorous Myra who 
awaited him, not the coarse agent the sensitive 
mother feared; but a gentleman who looked, first 
pleasant, then embarrassed, before the vision of 
superb womanhood confronting him. 


CHAPTER IV 


pER asp era ad astra!” The man smiled and 
caught his breath a little as he reached the 
landing. 

“Just out of college?*’ Myra was very crisp. 

“What makes you think that?” 

“We speak live languages after the first year or 
so out of the kindergarten.” Myra viewed the man 
in an uncompromising manner that made him 
squirm. 

“If I can’t make him suffer all he has made my 
mother endure, at least I will pay him interest on 
the debt,” vindictively to herself; then aloud, icily, 
“Even live languages have to be made over every 
few minutes to keep them up with the times.” 

She looked him up and down with an intentionally 
irritating, critical air, from the heart of his fine 
eyes to his well-fitting suit and immaculate shoes; 
the'n, with deliberation, back again. Despite her 
intention to be disagreeable, her will wavered as 
her eyes rested in his clear and truthful ones. . A 
little puzzled expression crept into hers, as she met 
the clear intent of his. 

“Mother must have been dreadfully nervous to 
be afraid of this man.” As she thought, insensibly 
her manner became more friendly. 

“You don’t like my Latin?” he smiled. “Then 
please forget it and I will talk American. I am glad 

26 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 27 


you’re inclined to be nice after what has occurred. 
May I come in? I am the agent, you know; the 
house agent.” 

“You are not as formidable as my mother led me 
to expect,” Myra was becoming conciliatory. “Come 
in? Certainly.” 

“You see — ” Mart Manning entered the living 
room and bowed courteously to Mrs. Harndon. The 
rigid attitudes of the two women embarrassed him 
with a sense of guilt for the sins of others. “You 
see, I am my father’s son.” 

“That’s queer, isn’t it!” Myra’s intention of 
making this man as uncomfortable as possible, re- 
turned. She looked at him, unsmiling. Again the 
frank, earnest, almost appealing look in the large 
eyes, brought forth from hers the ghost of a twinkle. 
She tried to conceal it by a quick shadow of severity ; 
but like the moon behind a cloud, the light shone 
forth, and the flush on the man’s face receded. As 
his assurance returned, so did her sense of vindic- 
tiveness. Her next words brought the flush again 
to his face. 

“Did the father of his son think it necessary to 
threaten a sensitive woman like my mother because 
she could not pay the rent, while many who ignore 
their obligations intentionally are unmolested?” 

“That is just it. Miss Harndon! My father does 
not want such men in his employ, nor does he wish 
to be listed with eviction brutes or profiteers. He 
has discharged that agent. I have come in his stead, 
just to — to — become acquainted a bit. I have just 


28 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


left college with all the earmarks you discern; not 
one college, but several. Perhaps that is why I cling 
to my Latin; not so much because I am a fossil or 
a kid as because I like roots” 

“Be seated, Mr. Manning,’' Mrs. Harndon, who 
was not vindictive, was thawing perceptibly. 

“It is so beautifully homelike, here.” A moment 
of appreciative silence, then, “The position of this 
property is good but the tenants keep moving. We 
want to find out why, and make everybody com- 
fortable. — What a wonderful view! But where do 
you get breath to climb up here. Gymnastic stunts 
don’t phase me a bit; indeed, I am a bit of an athlete, 
in a way; but those stairs!” 

“Steady climb versus sporadic effort!” Myra re- 
turned grimly. “Gymnastics suggest much of the 
education vouchsafed such as you and me, or what 
I was a while ago; climbing stairs takes steady 
wind.” 

“I should have stopped to puff on the way, but 
was ashamed to when I saw you.” His eyes had a 
touch of daring that weakened before Myra’s un- 
compromising glare. 

“Don’t exaggerate, young man!” She took 
pleasure in impressing youth upon him, though that 
seemed rather a mantle of charm than of years. 
“It was not to welcome your approach that I stood 
there. On the contrary, it would have given me 
pleasure to electrocute you!” 

“I felt as much, until I realized you thought I 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 29 

was the other man. I am very glad I am not the 
other man!” 

“If you have the receipt, my mother will give you 
the rent.” She faltered. Until that very moment, 
it had escaped her attention that she had broken 
into the sum for motor fare. 

“Really, it is quite all right if you care to let the 
matter rest for a while. I believe I will sit down, 
Mrs. Hamdon. I am ashamed to confess that climb 
has made me tired. Elevators and level streets; 
all hills cut down but Beacon, and motors for that. 
It is making me anaemic.” 

“Not half so anaemic as the lack of that two 
dollars is making me!” Myra was thinking. “Espe- 
cially after I have been so disagreeable.” 

What was her mother doing! What was Mr. 
Manning saying! 

“We are reducing rents in this locality, so I am 
returning you ten dollars,” he was saying, and her 
mother was putting a five-dollar bill into her purse 
and receiving change into her hand; enough to live 
on, with care, till the money came in from the 
immigrant work. 

“An elevator will help the renting,” he was saying 
as he put his money away. “If these stairs tire me 
they must weary those who live here.” 

“It is thoughtful of you to reduce the rent. We 
should be frank and tell you that we have no idea 
where our next is coming from.” 

“After today’s experience, Myra!” Mrs. Hamdon’s 
tones were full of tender meaning. 


30 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“I know; but if Mr. Manning wants the flat for 
someone else, we would make way; though where 
to go — ” she faltered. 

“An applicant was here this morning,” said Mrs. 
Harndon. “She seemed sure of our removal — ” 
Mart winced. “But when she saw the — ” she paused 
as if unwilling to continue. 

“Saw what? Please tell me! I prefer to keep 
good tenants rather than wori’y eternally with new 
ones.” 

“The wall paper gave her the nightmare.” 

A flash of inspiration illumined Myra’s beautiful 
eyes, increasing their fascination for the man, 
though he tried not to betray it. He was afraid she 
might freeze again. So he drooped his lids over his 
tell-tale eyes. This action brought to his attention 
the floor. The ugliest red paint he had ever set eyes 
on challenged him. It was the last agent’s idea of 
setting a house in order for rent. 

“If I had to live with that floor, I should want to 
kill everyone in sight,” he was thinking. “It is a 
regular flghting red.” 

His mind was torn from contemplation of red, 
painted battle grounds, to the fear he had not con- 
cealed his admiration from Myra. She would resent 
it; miscontrue it, because he was who he was and 
she where she was; as if one could not tell that 
these two were gentlewomen, brought here by some 
terrible turn of life’s wheel. 

He mumbled, “I wish you would show me the 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 31 


defects of the suite; I really do. I assure you it 
would be a courtesy; it really would.” 

He might have spared himself his embarrassment. 
Myra was not thinking of him at all, as a man ; only 
as an agent, whose mandate could- turn them into 
the street. In matter-of-fact manner she responded 
to his request and showed him the flat, from the 
living room, which was fairly ' desirable, to the 
kitchen and back premises, offensive with grime, 
with effluvia rising through the freight elevator from 
the cellar; a funnel for the conveyance of dank and 
noisome atmosphere. Amounting to a stench of 
must and fermentation, odors rose like miasma, 
through the aperture, savoring of a dark unsanitary 
cellar. 

“Doubtless you pay well for the care of these 
premises, but general inspectors seldom succeed in 
doing away with institutional odors; less, I think, 
for lack of literal sweeping and dusting than for 
want of personal interest. Everything needs that,” 
said Mrs. Harndon. 

“I wish we could restore the original meaning of 
the phrase, ‘the odor of sanctity,’ in these apart- 
ments of ours. Now it stands only for tenement 
odors and institutional slovenliness. If only we 
could And some one to help us in carrying out our 
plans!” 

He looked about thoughtfully, started to speak, 
checked himself; then said hastily, “Mrs. Harndon, 
would you and your daughter help us? Would you 
consider remaining here and imbuing the place with 


32 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


a personal interest that will remove the tenement 
smell, mental and material? Would you undertake 
to find for me tenants to whom such things make 
a difference? That would be splendid. We would 
pay you rather well — 

“Your suggestion offers a happy solution to some 
of our problems, and we hope may be made tp work 
out some of yours.” Myra caught the answer from 
her mother’s lips. “I am strong enough to stoke 
furnaces and shovel snow from sidewalks. I will 
undertake the work, gladly.” 

Mart Manning had to droop his eyes again to 
conceal his admiration at the pluck of the evident 
gentlewoman. 

“There will be a janitor, of course; we wish your 
assistance for another phase of housecleaning. I 
will tell you what my father and I have been talking 
about; we want, in a way, to be moral underwriters 
for some of these — ” 

“Derelicts?” Myra’s tones were very bitter. 

“I don’t want to call them derelicts. Many, with- 
out sufficient collateral to secure rent notes, possess 
a moral quality that is even a superior security. 
T desire to pay’ is a pretty good collateral for ‘I 
promise to pay.’ We want to make homes for those 
with moral security; with taste for home and the 
intrinsic fineness of life apart from display and the 
address on a calling-card. Odors must be corrected 
first of all; then the wall paper that causes tooth- 
ache! Where is it? Ugh! It is in the hall! Now 
you attract my attention to it, I recognize it as a 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 33 


Nemesis to inspiration in almost every one of our 
houses.” 

‘‘It is costly; perhaps your agent received good 
commissions?” 

‘‘It completely destroys all our attempts at vistas,” 
said Myra. 

‘‘What is that about vistas?” Mart turned from 
the wall paper to Myra’s radiant face. 

‘‘There are bay windows, you see, at each end of 
the suite, with open spaces of back yards and alleys 
at the rear, and in the front the wonderful view that 
drew your attention as you entered.” Mrs. Hamdon 
was becoming interested. Paint color was mantling 
her cheeks. 

‘‘This suite can appeal in furnishings and decora- 
tions to the type of tenant you are thinking of, if 
your father cares to let us do it over.” The inspira- 
tion that had flashed into Myra’s eyes, a minute 
before, was revealed. ‘‘Give us the title of ‘Home 
Makers.’ We can please you for possibly less than 
you generally pay for renovations. The kind of 
tenants you wish will naturally drift here.” 

‘‘Do we ever drift, I wonder!” 

‘‘You mean that the principle of attraction in such 
instances, comes into active force?” 

‘‘Something like that. It seems horrible to con- 
sider ourselves as little better than driftwood. I like 
to think that we sail on currents of our own making 
into ports where we may find cargoes suited to the 
kind and capacity of our ships.” 

“Ugh! I don’t!” With a shrug of her handsome 


34 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


shoulders, “Nor would you if you had selected 
currents that had run you into a port like this, filled 
with the fiotsam and jetsam of humanity! Don’t 
make me feel that we alone are responsible for this 
situation!” 

“Oh, I am sorry! I did not mean that and I do not 
think so ! There are too many factors — ” 

“Even so,” said Mrs. Harndon quickly, “If it is 
true, we can select currents for sailing out, Myra — ” 
“Or,” Myra quickly recovered herself and again 
clutched at the truth that had so recently been re- 
vealed to her, “We can stay here until we gather a 
cargo, rare and fine and well worth loading on to 
the ships of our increased understanding. Why will 
I be so caustic when I know—” 

“You are in line with our thought. Miss Harndon. 
Mrs. Harndon, my father has thoroughly common- 
sense ideas for coping with the problems of the day.” 

“They interest me. Tell me something of them?” 
This man was so earnest that they all were by way 
of forgetting they had known of his existence only 
about a quarter of an hour. 

“A common purpose is a finer introduction to 
acquaintance than time,” Mrs. Harndon smiled. 

“Indeed I think so,” he answered gladly, feeling 
now wholly at ease; as does the practical indealist 
when he finds a mind that neither decries as im- 
possible what he wishes to see evidenced; nor flies 
without balance up into clouds without bearings. 

“His idea is not settlement work. That is neces- 
sary, though, as we study conditions, we wonder 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 35 


if some of the methods are promoting a dependence 
that breeds discontent. The recipient sees the 
thing he would have; but does not realize that it 
is through the development of his own powers that 
he shall have the thing. Life is interdependent.” 

“Yes; there is no such thing as independence.” 
Myra was still bitter. 

“I wish our property could serve as inspiration 
for those about here who are the warriors soon to 
fall, if reinforcements do not arrive.” 

“You want to waken sleeping aspiration without 
inciting ambition to envy and discontent. I see.” 

“Such as I am thinking of, don’t want to be 
amused, Mrs. Harndon. We want to rouse in larger 
measure a vital interest*' 

“When the heart is heavy, attempts to amuse 
exasperate.” Mrs. Hamdon understood too well. 

“There are fine minds in this hoi polloi about here.” 

Mrs. Harndon was very thoughtful. 

“When we land on this side of the bridge, we are 
all classed as derelicts and feel as such. The feeling, 
as much as the fact, soon makes us so.” 

“May I bring my father to talk over these things 
with you?” Mart moved toward the door. 

“Bring him tomorrow evening.” Mrs. Hamdon 
was cordial; Myra, forgiving. 

Visions of a livelihood and this man’s view of 
life were already dimming her sense of failure; and 
her yearnings for old conditions were being directed 
into channels of desire for usefulness. She must 
keep the faith. It slipped from her often; had 


36 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 

slipped from her just now. She and faith must 
keep close together; never fail, one the other. 

“We can try out a plan in this suite that will be 
inexpensive,” as she returned to the living room. 
“That means,, for one thing, we won’t have any 
furniture out of proportion with spaces,” as she 
struck her foot against a large rocker. “If we 
succeed, we can help tenants with other suites and 
rooming houses, and perhaps get a hotel or two 
about here to do over. We will have fun insinuating 
balance, proportion, and rhythm into the three 
primary color effects of red, blue, and yellow so 
many revel in, won’t we! You used to get effects 
that were the despair of decorators. Soap, water, 
and dye will work wonders. I must run, it won’t 
do to be late at the station.” 


CHAPTER V 


M yra returned in a minute, ready for her trip 
down town. She found her mother in a pool 
of pessimism. 

“Why this sudden change?'* 

“It all sounds very well, Myra, but we can't com- 
pete with professional decorators and furnishers — " 
“We don’t intend to. Decorators don't have the 
opportunities we shall have. They, from the out- 
side, provide ideas and fabrics; we adapt those fab- 
rics and ideas to personal needs as we, from the 
inside, discover them.” 

“You look entrancing when you talk dyes\ but 
you know they are unsatisfactory, especially in 
cheap materials; as for soap and water, washed 
things don’t stay clean. As for cleaning, I can 
smell it!” 

“Yes! Your nose should have a special salary 
all to itself. If you dislike the idea of soap and 
water and dyes, look up the real sales and shun 
bargains. Your ability to select is your most 
valuable asset.” 

“I feel as if these men had found us out and were 
offering us charity.” 

“Then let us fall in with their attempts at conceal- 
ment, and evolve a real job; and. Mother, let us 
make goodV* 

“We have had so many fiascoes — '* 

37 


38 ON THE OTHER 'SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“We needn’t have any more if we stop the habit 
at the starting-place, the mind. ‘What’s bred in the 
bone comes out in the flesh’ would better read, 
‘What’s bred in the mind, comes out in the flesh.’ 
You and I, Mother, have given ourselves to a con- 
stant picturing of our affairs as we especially dislike 
them to be. When you helped father build the 
different homes you and he built or rebuilt together, 
you saw in your mind what you wanted in wood or 
stone, got the debris off the ground, draughted your 
ideas deflnitely on paper, and went to work accord- 
ing to the new plans. We don’t do that with our 
affairs. We keep at work, in imagination, on the 
old ones. We keep at work on old material 
that we can never use in our lives again, 
and that would be unsuited to our present needs, 
supposing it were at hand. Whenever you and I 
get together, your eyes grow large and hopeless; 
the corhers of your mouth go down; your adorable 
voice attaches to itself a wail. My mouth and voice 
follow suit. You become teary ; I, caustic and bitter. 
We hold a regret and grief feast — and you know it!” 

“It is so much easier to plan in wood and stone 
than in ourselves.” 

“We think we are wool gathering and phantasy 
collecting if we make upbuilding plans for our lives, 
yet we image conditions we do not want, or live in 
old conditions more actually than in the present real. 
We live in a phantasy, mother! A phantasy! I tell 
you, I have had a spiritual eye-opener, today and 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE . 39 


though I may forget, and be caustic and bitter, down 
underneath I shall keep the faith!” 

“Can’t you image something better than going 
into this immigrant matter? I am concerned at 
your taking that woman out to Waterloo by yourself. 
She may be a cut-throat!” 

“I am working, mother, for the North American 
Civic League of Immigration and the Travellers’ Aid. 

I wear both their badges. Their special object is 
to protect their cases; of course they will likewise 
protect their officials. I shall not be asked to en- 
danger myself in the performance of my duties. If 
I go back to the station at once, we shall probably 
take the next train to Waterloo. You know trains 
run frequently. I shall place Judith at once, catch 
the next train, and be back at the station before 
sunset. I am sure to be fully protected.” 

“But Myra! Your other crazy plan of hunting 
junk shops and bargain counters for furnishings! 
Why not secure a place as model at Heard’s? We 
have bought enough there to be entitled to their 
consideration, and your figure is superb.” 

“I do not care to show off my figure for money. 
If you were not afraid of imaginary cut-throats you 
would not wish me to.” 

“If you are not self-conscious it will mean no 
more to you than showing goods.” 

“Too many with good figures and little education 
go into that!” 

“Isn’t there something else you can do?” 

“I am no good at book-keeping; I blunder at copy- 


40 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


ing. While F am learning something, we shall 
starve.” 

“Why not teach?” 

“The art of puzzling and getting nowhere is the 
only art I seem to have mastered sufficiently to 
teach! Besides, Mamsee, you know I tried that! 
The old days are over. Teaching is for college 
grads. Though thousands have been spent on my 
education, and I have had special training from 
some of the finest minds in the country, I have not 
a diploma. I seem to have drawn this immigrant 
proposition up from the well of contemplation ; also, 
this plan of home-making for those capable of 
appreciating homes. In these, there is no out-go 
of money; just the exercise of faith, tact, kindliness, 
fearlessness. I am going to image what these 
qualities can do for me instead of imaging, con- 
stantly, what the lack of their use may force us into. 
Don’t worry about me. I may have to stay very 
late at the station.” 

“I never was so glad to see anyone in all my life,” 
was Mr. Marks’ greeting, when Myra reached the 
station. “The stout specimen is still sitting on her 
luggage, refusing to move, and jabbering with ex- 
citement if anyone goes to touch it. Every frill of 
broad white lace on that bright blue silk dress 
quivers; her bosom heaves and her short-sleeved 
brawny arms twitch for a fight. I have handed you 
a job. As I told you, probably no one will be at the 
address she gives you. They almost never are. I 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 41 


don’t know whether they repent of their invitations, 
or are evicted. That seems to be the fashion — 
eviction.” 

Myra winced but recovered quickly. Somehow, 
the word related her more intimately to her work. 

‘‘Shall I express the bag?” 

‘‘I have just told you she won’t let it out of her 
grasp. She can’t go into the passenger coach with 
it and it is up to you to get her into the baggage 
car. I hate to run her in, or frighten her for doing 
what she thinks is her right and duty, protecting 
her property. It is a pitiful mess here. Over there 
are a duke and his family, wife and two children; 
lost everything but enough to take them to a farm 
in Minnesota. Over there are some Belgian aris- 
tocracy who have decided to try out life again in 
a dairy in Georgia.” He waved his hand from one 
direction to another and turned to a group of immi- 
grants who were approaching him. 

Myra went over to Judith, adorned, as the agent 
had observed, in a bright blue silk dress trimmed 
with quantities of broad white lace. 

“Napoli?” she said cheerily. 

The woman nodded. 

“Train?” Myra had a little knowledge of the 
Neapolitan dialect, from a season spent on the Bay 
of Naples, sketching; also, she was fluent of speech 
in French; but she relied most of all on instilling 
into the mind of this frightened yet wary bird of 
passage confidence in her intentions. As she spoke, 
she laid her hand lightly on Judith’s luggage. She 


42 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


paid too high a tribute to her own powers. Judith 
glared and settled down on the bag. All Myra knew 
of Neapolitan, French, and human nature failed to 
move this immigrant from her seat. Mr. Marks sent 
the interpreter over again. In a few terse words he 
explained to Judith the necessity of being housed 
before night, and went away, leaving the two women 
to battle with their problem. 

By a language universal, Myra was given to 
understand that the woman was to her luggage as 
Cerberus to Hades. It was as the agent had said; 
at the first hint of an approach to the portmanteau, 
Judith’s bosom heaved, her arms twitched, her face 
became an embodiment of terror. Myra challenged 
word after word of her limited Neapolitan vocabu- 
lary, at last, less by speech than by manner and 
the expression of her sweet and winning face, 
assuring Judith of her friendliness and good inten- 
tions. The halting of language was more than 
counterbalanced by the firm tones of comradeship, 
imparting a confidence that soothed the frightened, 
terror-tensioned woman. Myra assured her she 
would not leave her until she had her settled, but 
the journey must begin at once. Where did she 
want to go? Waterloo, yes; but where in Waterloo? 

Yielding, finally, to necessity, Judith rose suspi- 
ciously from the bag and proceeded to unstrap it. 
She had wholly forgotten, had she ever known, the 
exact address of her destination, but she did recall 
it was on a piece of paper somewhere in the bag. 

Myra stood by and tried to protect from observa- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 43 


tion the contents of the receptacle. As these were 
tumbled helter-skelter on the floor, she thought that 
never had she beheld such a medley. Tossed to- 
gether were rags, images, lace, bits of whalebone, 
hats mashed flat. There were bundles of sheet 
music and opera scores ; home-woven petticoats and 
satin gowns of doubtful and wrinkled splendor; a 
prayer book and a dagger; gay handkerchiefs, 
peasant shawls, and tinsel imitations of queenly 
attire. All this and more; but no address. 

At length Judith permitted Myra to join in the 
search. 

Then it was that Myra understood Judith’s ce- 
mented relation to the portmanteau, as well as the 
cause of its unusual weight. Though she found the 
address Anally in the toe of a stocking, this was not 
all. Throughout the trunk were gold pieces, each 
tied separately in some garment. There was a good 
sum for beginning life in the new world, apart from 
what she had been compelled to declare of worldly 
goods. 

Judith’s pugnacity and pertinacity took on new 
light to Myra. Her knowledge of the gold made her 
feel, more than ever, the necessity of placing her 
charge before nightfall. She appreciated this far 
better than she could make Judith understand it. 
But one idea seemed to penetrate the latter’s brain; 
that the trunk and its contents were safe only under 
her avoirdupois. The whereabouts did not matter. 
Judith would not move — neither to Waterloo nor 
anywhere else, if a stranger had to touch that bag. 


44 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


Sitting where she was forever, propped stiffly 
against her own back bone, held no terrors for 
Judith. 

Meanwhile the afternoon was passing. While 
Judith was remaining stolidly obdurate Myra was 
growing actively angry. 

The agent, seeing the two, took a minute to run 
over to them. 

“If you can’t start her pretty soon we will have 
to run her in. Explain that to her. Tell her the 
police won’t let her stick to that bag. They don’t 
recognize Siamese twins and will cut them in half 
in short order.” 

After the agent returned to his post, Myra walked 
to the other side of the station. There, in the cool- 
ness of the automobile section, she lingered, away 
from the sight and sound of the immigrant seethe 
and ooze. 

“I have grit and God and God’s supply,” she 
thought positively. “It is inconceivable that I fail 
in this, my first job since realizing I have possessions 
ticketed with my name in the storehouse of God’s 
supply. That woman is to go where she is to go. 
Neither of us needs to fear.” 

The cool air swept comfortably about her, making 
little eddies of refreshment. She closed her eyes to 
feel herself in a meadow of rest; then, on hills of 
accomplishment. • 

She was stirred to the present by hearing a voice. 

“There she is, now!” 

She opened her eyes to look into the amused face 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 45 


of Ted Dingley and the radiant countenance of 
Mart Manning. 

In her struggle with Judith Myra had wholly for- 
gotten Mart’s existence. The sight of Ted Dingley, 
however, wakened a pleasure she long had ceased 
to feel at the sight of old-time friends. 

“Wherever have you been, Myra?” Ted was call- 
ing delightedly. “Meet Mr. Manning, Miss Harndon. 
Mart has been acting like a wild man, Myra; met 
me down on State Street and told me he had seen 
the woman of his dreams down in the slums ; should 
die if he couldn’t be presented, and couldn’t think of 
a way. Presented in the slums ! Ha ! ha ! Sluihmers 
are already presented by their work in common; 
the natives don’t need any presentation. They are 
self introduced. I told him that before I could help 
him I must know the name of the goddess. When 
he gave me your name, I didn’t blush and stir like 
the rose in the song, I just whooped right out! 
‘You’ve come to the right one, old boy,’ I told him. 
‘I used to play mud pies with Myra Harndon, and 
haven’t been able to trace her since I came back 
from service.’ There, Mart, now you know each 
other after the manner of the stupid, hand-shaking 
world. What are you doing, Myi’a, slumming?” 

“No, slummed,” said Myra bitterly. “I have been 
in battles too, Ted, and have had to capitulate. Mine 
has been the war of finance. We have lost every- 
thing and are living in the slums, mother and I — ” 

“Oh, Mart didn’t call it the slums. Put that down 


46 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


to me. He just said Sweet Street, and you know we 
always call that the slum part of the city.” 

“Yes, we called everything the ‘other side of the 
bridge’ the slum region! It’s all right, Ted. I 
should have cared this morning. I — I — perhaps I 
can stand it better, now. I suppose Mr. Manning 
has told you I am here assisting immigrants, or 
trying to. So far, I am less of a success than 1 
intend to be later. I was growing angry and came 
over here to cool off. Come take a look at my 
charge. She is a big fat Neapolitan who won’t move 
from where she is because she won’t let herself be 
separated from her luggage, an enormous bag, too 
large for her to carry and too clumsy to go into a 
passenger coach. I am growing anxious; she has 
to be placed in Waterloo and it is growing late. 
It is no wonder she wants to keep the bag within 
reach,” she whispered confidentially to the two men. 
“It is almost packed with gold pieces. How she 
got it so far without being detained is a mystery 
to me. It must be because of her indomitable grit.” 

“Grit will take one almost anywhere. We found 
that out in the dugouts, didn’t we, Mart!” said Ted. 

“Yes, and it will take you and your Neopolitan 
through,” responded Mart. “Miss Harndon, let us 
see her. Perhaps we can help. I have often gone 
on cases for Marks when immigrants have piled in 
like salmon.” 

The three crossed the station. Judith saw them 
approaching, and settled harder on the bag. Mart 
went to see Marks. In a few minutes he returned. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 47 


“Marks says it is all right. I have a plan. My 
car is outside. We will run out to Waterloo with 
Judith. It is a pretty ride, you know, gnd not too 
long. We can easily get there before dusk.** 

Judith looked up suspiciously and glowered. 
Again Myra labored with her and showed her 
through signs, that the sun was going down and 
darkness coming on. Then the young men appealed 
to her, each in his way. Gradually Judith*s suspi- 
cions were allayed and her antagonism softened. 
She actually permitted Mart to put his hand on one 
end of the luggage, and keep it there as if making 
friends. After a while, she rose and took hold of 
the bag as if to lift it. In a flash. Mart had tightened 
his grip; Ted had the other end in his hand; Myra 
made futile grabs when and where she could, and 
the chauffeur, who had followed the party in case 
of need, clutched the air in attempts to touch the 
mass as it began to move. But it was the sturdy 
Judith who kept her strong hands on the handles 
near the lock and straps. 

. So, officered on all sides, the bag went bumpity- 
bump, trailing across the station to the automobile 
section. 

“We will take her over to Waterloo in my car.** 
“Will we! Judith says no,** Mart Anally acknow- 
ledged, “and what Judith says evidently goes.** For, 
when Judith found that, with all willingness on the 
part of the host, she could not sit on her bag in 
transit nor hold it on her lap, and that it seemed 
Impracticable to strap her on the rear of the motor 


48 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


with it, again she sat down upon it, a vital obstruc- 
tion to motor traffic. Of course this was not to be 
permitted, and the approach of an official forced her, 
in fear of the uniform, to turn to her friends, for 
such she seemed at last to realize they were. 

Seeing for herself, as she had not been able to do 
from inside, that the sun was setting, and with the 
canniness of her kind gauging just how little of 
Myra’s great but rapidly oozing patience remained, 
she agreed to take a train. By the time they reached 
the gate, the rear car was swinging leisurely round 
the curve and like a bird on the wing was out upon 
the road. 

Night had fallen. Every fleck of sunset glow had 
faded from the sky; the station was a-twinkle with 
electric lights. There was no other train to Waterloo 
until the ten o’clock ran out. 

So Myra and Ted and Judith, assisted after the 
same fashion as before by the chauffeur, bumpity- 
bumped the bag back to their starting place; Ted 
and Mart having as they expressed it, the time of 
their lives; Myra thoroughly exasperated and 
ashamed, but determined to succeed; Judith, grim 
and gritty, showing no signs of exhaustion or of 
capitulation; the chauffeur, nose upturned at the 
whole proceeding, conflding to the down-turned 
visor of his cap that if he had his way he would tie 
the female on to her disreputable bag and send the 
whole blooming bundle to Waterloo on a truck. 

“It has to be the police,” said the tired agent. 
“There is no sense in catering to such mulishness.” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 49 


“Just one more try,” pleaded Myra. “She will go 
in the baggage car at ten o’clock.” 

“If you are willing to waste your strength, it’s all 
the same to me,” retorted the agent disgustedly, and 
he took his hat and went home. 

Ted and Mart brought coffee and sandwiches, and 
the group gathered about Judith’s portmanteau as 
about a throne. Eating and talking and walking 
about (all but Judith, who only sat), they spent their 
time until the late train was made up; then again 
going bumpity-bump across the station, they 
reached the cars. As they had known would be 
the case, the conductor refused to take the bag on 
a passenger coach and Judith would not part with it. 
Sending the chauffeur back to the motor to await 
their return, the rest of the party dragged the bag 
along the platform to the baggage car where they 
and it were disposed of by a kindly official. The 
train started, and one of the party at least, as she 
sank on to the comfortless support of a packing 
box, felt that she had met and overcome a Waterloo. 


CHAPTER VI 


T en o’clock found the quartet in the foreign 
quarter of Waterloo. The trip from the station 
to the quarter was a repetition, on a more extended 
scale, of the trips across the station. Had it not 
been for the hilarity of the men, the experience 
might have been deluged in Myra’s tears. But the 
impossible had been accomplished. Judith, the im- 
movable, had been moved ! She, the bag, all of them, 
were in the dense stillness of a silent street, where 
no pedestrian was to be seen upon the sidewalk, 
no light glimmering from the windows behind which 
tired workers slept. 

The address, signified upon the piece of paper 
dragged from the secret places of the precious bag, 
was reached; but as the agent had foretold there 
was no response to the vigorous onslaught of the 
trio knocking for admittance. Their only greeting 
was a sign “For Rent” nailed upon one of the panels 
of the door. What to do with Judith! 

A moment of thought; Myra stepped into the 
middle of the silent street. 

“Napoli! Napoli!” she called in clear, sweet tones. 
As in a fiash of time, windows were thrown wide; 
heads protruded from open casements; hastily clad 
figures appeared at doorways ; the sidewalks 
swarmed with human beings. Wonderingly, they 
gazed at the strange group on the highway; two fine 

50 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 51 


looking gentlemen ; a beautiful lady ; a woman from 
across seas; and a bag as big as a trunk, nay, a 
mountain, it may have seemed to their sleepy eyes. 

Then began a clatter of tongues. The sound of 
voices ricochetted from wall to wall of the narrow 
street. Separating themselves little by little from 
those of other nationalities, the Italians, whatever 
their sections and disputes, crept closer to the group, 
peering, mystified at this countrywoman whose 
advent was so dramatic and so strange, heralded at 
night by beings from other spheres than theirs. 

There came a cry of recognition from one of the 
group. “My wife!” rang out in stentorian tones. 
A handsome Neapolitan forced his way through the 
increasing throng and clasped the traveller in his 
arms. 

Gathering about the bag in friendly attempts to 
remove it to Pedro’s quarters, all of her countiymen 
who could get near enough to put finger upon it, 
did so; but joy at meeting her husband did not de- 
tract one iota from Judith’s attentiveness to her 
luggage. It was she who generalled the triumphal 
procession across the street, hovering alertly over 
the lock and straps. So the bag was twitched and 
tugged, dragged, lifted and pulled over the stones, 
to lier husband’s dwelling place. 

Soon Judith was in the arms of others of her 
kinspeople, her eyes turned half round in her head 
during the series of embraces, glued upon the leather 
that held her gold. 


52 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


Then Myi'a, Mart, and Ted, with anxious and 
puffing speed, ran to the station at the far end of 
town; breathless, they fairly tumbled into the last 
coach of the last city-bound train, and exhausted 
but triumphant sank into their seats with the sense 
of victory won. 


CHAPTER VII 


T WO fruitful and busy weeks passed for Myra. 

Problems of race, nationality, sex, religion 
unrolled before her as written on a scroll. There 
crept into her life an understanding of humanity 
not to be gained so well, perhaps, in any other way. 
Many times her heart was torn; many times her 
delicious sense of humor titillated to amusing scenes. 
Moreover, she was happy in her work. Happy when 
she saw families united; happy in speaking cheer, 
even though she suffered with those wives turned 
from the homes they long had dreamed of claiming 
as their own, leaving other women sitting in their 
places and other children than their own playing 
about the door. It was worse when deportation 
cast its pall of death upon unity in life, and those 
taken and those left suffered in the horror of a 
living separation worse than the separation of those 
who die. Though she saw scenes of hysteria and 
some of the spirit of revenge, there was a pathetic 
amount of acquiescence to fate ; whether philosophic 
or protoplasmic, Myra could not divine. 

During these weeks that succeeded the trip to 
Waterloo, she had scarcely time to pass words with 
her mother on any subject, particularly about her 
plans for Home Making in the home, even as she 
was striving to promote Home Making in the larger 
world of race and country. She noted with satis- 

53 


54 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


faction, but without comment, that an expression of 
interest was replacing, in her mother’s countenance, 
the look of boredom and anxiety which had become 
almost habitual upon an otherwise beautiful face. 

One night she returned home, having set en route 
for the wheat country of the west some Swedish 
farmers, and planned for some South-of-Italy fruit 
growers to be sent on the morrow to the orange 
lands of Florida. 

She found her mother studying diagrams and 
making color combinations with water colors. 
Drawing-paper, boxes of paints, crayons, samples of 
gay chintzes, cretonnes, and wall papers covered, 
in pleasant confusion, the table where she sat. 

“This looks like business, Marmee! Tomorrow 
night will see me free to help in earnest. This time 
I am here with sixty dollars and a knowledge of its 
source. Mr. Marks’s force and I part with real 
regret. I am discharged, this time, with grit and 
God and sixty dollars of God’s supply; a wholesome 
increase of experience and a request to assist the 
league when vacation time rolls round again. And 
a job, Marmee, a job as janitor, supervisor, selector 
of home longers to fill spaces made homelike by 
Home Makers. I am hungry. Keep at your work, 
and I will get something to eat.” 

“What have you been doing?” she said a short 
time later, as they sat at the supper table. “You 
have been succeeding, despite dye and soap and 
water and gasoline. Your face shows it.” 

“I have taken accurate dimensions of every room 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 55 


in the suite, and studied combinations for decorating 
and furnishing in small and large spaces. I hope 
never to place human beings in surroundings such 
as the majority of homes, rich and poor, our present 
one included, manifest. Most of us dwell in the 
midst of disproportionate furniture, inharmonious 
coloring, and unbalanced detail. The right thing 
to think in spirit is the right thing to express in 
action and surroundings.” 

“Thought must be strong enough to pierce 
through, mustn’t ft, Mamsee!” Inwardly Myra was 
comparing her mother’s words with those of two 
weeks ago, as she left her to go to her newly found 
job. 

“I have imaged in my mind large rooms and small, 
dark ones and light, until I can picture any sort of 
apartment as I please to make it appear. If I can 
do that successfully, there need be no disappoint- 
ment and loss of strength and material through 
mistakes.” 

“You look as if you had had a trip into the 
country. Your skin is fair and rosy.” 

Mrs. Harndon laughed and the color mantled her 
cheeks. 

“It pleases me that I have thought through, as you 
express it. These two weeks I have tried to win 
the spirit of the woods to me, since I may not go 
to them. My inspirations have so often come from 
the woods. The coloring is so vital, so varied, so 
harmonious; one absorbs the power of atmosphere; 
the spirit is so potent. Do you notice the curtains 


56 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


are drawn back from the windows, letting in the 
marvelous view Mr. Manning, with all his oppor- 
tunities • of vistas and visions on the other side of 
the bridge, thought it worth his while to ‘stand still 
and adore?” 

“I noticed, the minute I came into the room. I 
like it. You have the frames skilfully shadowed, 
more as by mist than by curtain. They unify, rather 
than unlute.” 

“Myra! Why don’t you use everyday words and 
say, ‘draw in, rather than shut out’!” 

“Because I like unusual words,” laughed Myra, 
goodnaturedly. “They give me a feeling of largi- 
tion.” 

“Oh! oh! I am sorry I spoke,” laughed Mrs. 
Harndon in return. “I will not attempt to pin your 
individuality to simple words.” 

“I suspect I shall adopt them myself when I have 
grown to recognize that 

‘The great things are so simple; 

The simple are so great.’ 

What are you going to do when the neighbors tend 
to watch you comb your hair?” 

“See these little shades, so atmospheric you 
scarcely note them? The rollers are under the sills, 
dainty little ones, and the shades roll up instead 
of down.” 

“You make me feel as if you had brought me a 
special bit of heaven, a larger possession of life, and 
that all the heavens are ours for the asking. I knew 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 57 


your effects would be different from those of pro- 
fessional decorators.” 

“Many withhold light! We will let light in, in 
manner restful to tired eyes and weary minds. My 
eyes are not nearly so tired since I have been giving 
them opportunity to look out on space, and clouds 
and sky and electric storms to dwell upon. The 
night of the recent electric storms I saw great balls 
of fire running upon electric wires miles away. 
Vari-colored flame flowed along the sky, on and on. 
Never again will I shut away with dust-accumulating 
fabrics the view of God’s world.” 

“A decorator tells one that the first thing to 
appeal to the eye, or arrest attention as one enters 
a house, should be hall portieres,” scoffed Myra. 

“Before one sees, or is arrested by anything in 
entering a house, he should feel inspiration and rest; 
then, awakenment and vision.” 

Myra looked at her mother curiously. Was this 
the woman she had left two weeks ago, contesting 
samples and gasoline and bargain sales? 

“We condemn short-sightedness, mental and 
physical, yet instill the habit, even through our 
furishings, when we conceal vistas, whether mental 
or material,” musingly. 

“Aside from the effect upon the mental and 
spiritual life, we are dealing with rooms too small 
to be encumbered with things; too visible, from end 
to end, for portieres to suggest distance ; with people 
too busy to brush dust from curtain folds.” 


58 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


“And with spaces too confined to donate air to 
hanging masses of stuffs. What are you planning 
for tomorrow?” 

“We must have help, Myra. You can not climb 
ladders and clean walls.” 

“I have spent a great deal of money at gyms 
learning to scale ladders and walk scaffoldings. 
I should be able to negotiate a ten foot wall. By 
the way, this is not a suite at present; it is only a 
flat. Later, if we make good, we may call it a suite. 
If we fail, it degenerates into a tenement. I know 
I can prepare the walls and woodwork. I can do 
over chairs, rub down tables and other furniture. 
I expect I can do papering, too, if you will measure 
and cut. If we And we must have help, we must 
have it, that’s all.” 

A door-bell call gained swift response from Myra, 
who, unlatching the outer door from the hall, stood 
at the inner entrance to greet Mart Manning. This 
time he ascended the stairs without embarrassment 
for breath or words. 


CHAPTER VIII 


^^IV/fAY I talk over plans with you? It is so 
delightfully homey here.” Mart looked 
wistfully about the room. 

“Certainly. Come to the table and look at our 
samples.” 

Mrs. Harndon put into his hands some bunches 
of pretty furnishing goods and pushed toward him 
several pieces of wall paper. 

“Home-making is wholly apart from money ex- 
penditure, isn’t it.” The wistfulness on his face 
deepened. 

“I can not say, wholly,” smiled Mrs. Harndon. 

“Sometimes it detracts; more frequently it aids.” 

“The jug and thou are worth all the tapestries in 
the world.” 

“I agree; still, there must be a table for the jug 
and a chair for the thou'' laughed Myra. These 
must be proportioned to the spaces or they will be 
in the way — I’ve told you so, Mamsee,” as Mart tried 
to pass the big rocker. “We must do away with that 
overgrown chair that is blocking Mr. Manning’s 
passage to your shop counter, the dining table. It 
is always jumping up its rockers and hurting me 
when I hunt burglars for you at night. Living close 
to the roof, Mr. Manning, has drawbacks to timid 
mothers, equal to those of living close to the side- 
walk.” 


59 


60 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 

“I can quite imagine. I wonder how I would like 
to be a woman servant in a cellar room, with only 
a light grating between me and some evil minded 
passer by. It’s not strange the servant question 
presents problems. As to terms for this work?” 
Mart was disinclined to mention money; but Myra 
was very matter of fact and dispelled his hesitancy; 
so he settled himself in the big chair, which was 
comfortable even if out of proportion to the size of 
the room, and began to talk materials and plans. 

“That hall paper almost obsesses me! How it 
absorbs air and space! It sucks all sense of hope 
and comradeship! I feel its effect the moment the 
door is opened. This,” as Myra opened the door of 
the living room, “coloring pulls at my ideals; affects 
my respiration; there is an almost human clutch 
about it. How have you endured it so long?” 

“We haven’t,” said Myra, succinctly. “We have 
fussed, and been blue and generally disgusted; then 
we have shut the door, which we despise to do. 
I never can bear to live behind closed doors.” 

“Is this pretty paper in my hand expensive?” 

“It is fifty cents a roll; the one you are just taking 
from the table is five cents at a little sample shop 
near by, whose owner buys scraps from the larger 
stores.” 

“What do you suppose that hall paper cost?” 

“I know it wholesales at five dollars a roll.” 

“Is it my imagination that makes it so repugnant 
to me? Is it because of your suggestion?” 

“I am sure you are not infiuenced by my opinion. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 61 


The study of color and dyes explains the repulsion 
to a degree. The cause is not wholly mental.” 

“I am to have charge of the planning of some 
twenty places my father owns, as well as the build- 
ing and equipping and renting of a new apartment 
house on approved lines. We want your practical 
assistance. With your permission, father will be up 
again tomorrow evening. My father is a wonderful 
man, Mrs. Harndon, and a very lonely one, living in 
that ark of a house. My mother died after a long 
illness caused by an automobile accident. He will 
be interested to feel a true home atmosphere built 
even on the foundations of demoniac paper, dust and 
grime, without money and without price.” 

“Ah! You caught me up on fundamentals when 
I said ‘drift’ the other day.” Myra looked merry. 
“It is my turn now. The paper, dust and grime are 
not the foundations. Those are just little cloud 
shadows, nuancing the Spirit of Home.” 

Mrs. Harndon gathered up the samples as Myra 
accompanied Mart to the door. 

“The flat will be in the throes of reconstruction 
tomorrow night. Will your father mind?” 

“Father likes processes.” 

“Sometimes they are disheartening.” 

“Waiting long before seeing you would be more 
so!” 

The words floated back to Myra from the semi 
darkness of the stairway into which Mart plunged 
after this temerity of speech. Myra listened^ to the 
sound of his footsteps until the outer door closed. 


CHAPTER IX 


T he next morning, Myra and her mother began 
work on the flat. 

“Mr. Manning has been thoughtful in arranging 
for us with business houses, and his terms are most 
generous. To use your phrase, Myra, we must make 
good! I have thought out plans so carefully Fm 
sure there is no leak in the expenditures; and I do 
hope there will be no failure in results! If only my 
strength holds out!” 

“Mamsee, you are gaining in strength. You have 
been gaining ever since you were given this object 
in life.” 

“I don’t see that it leads anywhere. There is no 
climax — ” 

“Isn’t it possible — ” Myra, mounted on a step 
ladder, was busy at work pulling down long strips 
of the much berated wall paper. “Isn’t it possible 
that there is just as much climaxing in going on 
and on as on and up? Just tighten the supports of 
the step ladder, will you? Mther it is teetery, or my 
climbing ability is lessened by lack of use. I suspect 
all there is of fun in life is in ‘getting there.’ The 
‘having arrived’ suggests mummiflcation. What 
good is the average climax, anyway ?”^ — all the while 
balancing gracefully on the ladder and making 
havoc with the paper. “So far as I know, climaxes 
are nothing but architectural flnishes or jumping 
off places.” 


62 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 63 


Her mother looked up at her lovingly. 

“You are a dear, little encouraging girl.” 

“Whistling takes breath; breathing fills the lungs. 
If the listener can stand it, it does good to the 
whistler. Talk serves the same purpose.” 

“Go on about climaxes as architectural orna- 
ments.” Mrs. Harndon was at work on the lower 
spaces of the wall. 

“I am on fire with my subject,” laughed Myra. 
“Note the climax of the capitol at Washington! The 
tip top place ; the jumping off place, likewise. Since 
a man grew dizzy or tired of life one day while he 
was up there, and committed suicide, it has been 
denied to the public. What value has a climax. 
Mother, if it serves only as an ornament, or to tip 
people off their balance!” with a laugh that was 
intended to conceal her sarcasm and accentuate her 
desire to encourage her mother in the hum drum 
dragging life that stretched before them. “I am 
going to stay near the ground fioor, where things 
are run and done; oh! this is fun!” she went off into 
humming rhymes beneath her breath. 

The day went on apace till night fell and the 
Mannings came. 

Myra admitted them. Her interest in the meeting 
sent increased vitality into her eyes and heightened 
her charm, which was emerging out of the gloom 
that had threatened during past months to eclipse it. 
Her skin was clear and white; the daintiest of color 
played in her cheeks; her expression was radiant. 
Who says beauty is but skin deep! 


64 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“You have been busy, I see! Nemesis has dis- 
appeared ! No matter, Father, you can see that wall 
paper elsewhere, in any number of our flats. Appre- 
ciate, while you may, a real home!” Mart looked 
about him with interest. 

“You are funny!” Myra’s eyes danced with amuse- 
ment. “A real home disappears when papering is 
going on.” 

“Not so here.” Mr. Manning looked at the restful 
room, almost bare of ornament, but where signs of 
rigid need bore with them no hint of squalor or con- 
fusion. “Mart has led me to believe you are novices; 
but I see no suggestions.” 

“My father and husband were constantly building, 
renovating, and changing. Perhaps as home maker 
through^ these experiences I have learned to consider 
the comfort of the family more than outside workers 
do.” 

“I expected to And the place in confusion, as it 
would be if in the hands of professional decorators. 
They put us into a kettle of tumult, to stew at their 
leisure over the flames of the family anxiety and 
discomfort.” Mr. Manning moved about the room 
as he spoke, looking with interest at the orderly 
signs of reconstruction. “How is it you have not 
become a professional! In these days one expects 
that sort of thing from women.” 

Mrs. Harndon felt strangely comforted. She was 
not, then, a working woman in this man’s eyes ; she 
was doing her duty as a woman. She brightened 
perceptibly to Myra. It had not been easy for these 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 65 


two, this meeting on a plane so divergent from that 
of olden times. How was it that fate had never 
brought them together on the other side! She knew! 
They had been butterflies — of the best sort, it is 
true ; still, in the butterfly set. These men had been 
living larger lives; moving in orbit within orbit; in 
many phases, and learning many things. Her 
mother was replying to Mr. Manning: 

“I have never thought of commercializing my 
experience because I have no college training or 
university degree.’’ 

“What matter! You possess, as I judge from the 
several times I have seen you at work, the ability 
which many owners of degrees do not, of transfusing 
fundamental principles through the varied ex- 
pressions demanded of you. Many university men, 
many scientists, fail to do this. They are inclined 
to segregate their specialties. They split each 
interest into particular sciences and deny the rela- 
tion and correlation one to another, and reject the 
truth that the underlying principles are the same.” 

Myra looked very sweet as she listened. How 
long since she and her mother had had opportunity 
really to converse! 

“No place in the world. Miss Harndon,” Mr. 
Manning turned to the younger woman, “teaches 
the co-ordination necessary to a well-ordered life 
like the training of a well-ordered home.” 

“I expect. Father, the trouble with the universities 
is that the homes are not always well-ordered; and 


66 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


the foundation is lacking in college life in conse- 
quence.” 

“I wish every schoolman realized that home train- 
ing is an asset,” sighed Myra. “I have been taught 
on the principle that in the painting of a picture 
it is not true ail unless it can be transposed from 
color into music.” 

“A large world opens up to us when we dare 
mention ‘vibratory equivalents’ and ‘ratios of vibra- 
tion’,” said Mart enthusiastically. Myra’s eyes 
sparkled, then the light faded and an expression of 
sadness come into them. 

“But when it comes to getting work, Mr. Manning, 
mention of ratios and vibrations — oh ! I have studied 
much for my age, but I am not a college woman. 
When the world wishes to measure what I know, 
where is my bit of paper stating the number of 
kilowatts and kilometres I represent! A college 
degree is an open sesame; lack of it, a huge boycott! 
When I know I know, where is my paper proving it!” 

“There does seem to be a university trust com- 
pelling degrees, but not all of us are in it, are we, 
Mrs. Hamdon? Allow me to turn the light a little. 
It is shining in your eyes.” 

Mrs. Harndon looked her thanks. It was long 
since anyone had cared whether the light shone 
disturbingly into her eyes — except dear little Myra. 

“Children playing in a garden under the direction 
of wise fathers and mothers know some fundamen- 
tals about gardening that escape the attention, if not 
the knowledge, of a student of agriculture who 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 67 


studies and directs from the cement floor of a college 
laboratory.” 

“I am sure a housekeeper could give some states- 
men lessons on conserving the coal supply in a 
better fashion than putting out flres; indeed, any 
intelligent cook who learns her kitchen stove could 
do so. But don’t you think that the pedant who 
studies, and the man who lives and applies what he 
knows, are coming together in one flesh?” 

“Very rapidly in these latter days.” 

“You would not think so if you were hunting 
a job, Mr. Manning.” Myra emphasized the word 
“job” ; she could not help it if it did make her mother 
quiver! That is what it was, a joh^ she was wanting. 
She knew her mother was thinking her crude, to be 
personal; but these men were her employers; their 
visit a business call on employees. She must not 
forget it; she had been almost feeling they were 
men calling, as in the old days. It would not do 
to fall into that notion! Her mental loss of grip on 
herself imparted itself to her hands. These lost 
their grasp on the work she was holding. Mart 
picked it up and restored it to her, drawing his chair 
the veriest trifle closer to hers as he did so. 

“Or if you recall Angus Payne as one of a class. 
Do you remember him. Father?” It was Mart who 
’spoke, covering the little fleck of resentment in 
Myra’s tones by his acquiescence to her thought. 

“The little fellow who was tossed out of home 
at six through the death of his parents and sent 


68 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


to boarding school taught by men? I recall him, 
poor little chap.” 

Mr. Manning stood by the window. He looked 
out, as Mart had done on his first visit, upon the 
view, this time studded with lights from the city 
and stars from the heavens. They twinkled up and 
down to him and sent little messages into his heart. 
He felt happier than for a long time — turned to the 
sweet charm of the two women with a sense of 
restfulness and appreciation. 

“The teachers, all men! Think of it, Mrs. 
Harndon,” continued Mart. “Angus went from 
that school to another, studying to be a woman 
specialist. From college to college, to university, 
to hospital after hospital. He practically never 
entered a home and never has been in vital contact 
with the inmates of one, in their normal relation 
to life. I suppose he never sees a woman unless she 
is ill in her home or in the unusual setting of a 
hospital. He thinks he knows woman. Really his 
study has been the investigation of normal women 
under abnormal conditions or abnormal women out 
of relation with normal conditions.” 

“A woman specialist!” Myra was amazed. “What 
could such a man know about women!” 

“Nothing but what he learns from books and 
plates and from hospital cases.” 

“How can this Angus know the difference be- 
tween a normal release of nervous tension and an 
abnormal expression! I expect most of us wohld 
be rolled off to a hospital in an ambulance were such 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 69 


a man to get hold of us at times.” Myra was 
brilliant in her indignation. Mart watched her 
closely as she talked. She was, certainly, very 
charming. 

“Is he married?” Mrs. Harndon was less vivacious 
but fully as concerned as Myra. “Every physician 
should be married. That relation is an initiation 
into a wonderful ‘house of many mansions.’ ” 

“Not he! He believes that he knows the female 
temperament too well to trust his precious self in 
the keeping of that creature of many foibles and few 
virtues. Oh! He’s a joke!” scoffed Mart. 

“A gruesome joke,” retorted Myra grimly. 

“Such men do much harm,” said Mrs. Harndon, 
while Myra’s eyes blazed and she said vigorously, 
“I’d like to give him a piece of my mind!” 

“He wouldn’t listen. He would take out his 
writing pad and make you out a prescription,” 
laughed Mart. 

“I have seen a book on Woman advertised as 
written by one Angus Payne,” Mrs. Harndon 
pondered. 

“And it is false in nearly every conclusion, so far 
as I have been able to discover.” Mr. Manning 
turned the reading lamp , so that the light fell on the 
work in Mrs. Harndon’s skilful fingers. “The 
saddest part is that the book is accepted as authority 
in the colleges, and the young Angus Paynes, of 
whom there are many, are building their ideas of 
woman on his conclusions. 

“Surely, Mr. Manning, doesn’t he realize that one 


70 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


must compare men and women with other beings 
in all natural relations before he is capable of 
differentiating between the normal and the abnormal 
and the supra normal?” 

“I would like to drum him out of his profession 
instead of honoring him as an authority,” declared 
Mart. 

“I would rather trust a child or wife of mine to 
the care of a man who knows woman through her 
part in life as a harmonious whole, united so as 
to exert a mutual influence, than to one who 
isolates her and studies her as a species governed 
by special laws,” returned Mr. Manning. 

“Of course we need specialists with degrees, but 
their training should include harmony between their 
information and the object upon which the informa- 
tion is to be exercised. They should not boycott 
those whose degree of competence consists of 
something other than a piece of vellum or parch- 
ment ; nor form a chain as strong only as its weakest 
link, to demean a Galileo and a Jesus, and others 
who think beyond the masses. You agree with me, 
feel with me; but you haven’t come up against it, Mr. 
Manning, as I have. In almost every educational 
circle the piece of paper counts for more than the 
ability to impart and apply knowledge.” Myra felt 
so strongly that she was dropping the social manner 
and settling down as one at war with conditions. 
She could not bear to be presented before these 
men as one of the incompetents, one of the derelicts ! 
Her cheeks were burning hotly now, with shame. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 71 

Her mother saw her ill-controlled emotion and was 
glad when Mart caught up her thought in his 
original phrase. 

“It isn’t the degree, it’s what a man does with it 
that counts. I have one or two and don’t like to 
lose your respect on account of them. Wings are 
often clipped through being held too closely in the 
scholastic nest; but wandering broods of thought 
are brought home to roost and are tested out.” 

“Yes, Myra,” Mrs. Harndon spoke soothingly, 
“one’s success, even with a diploma, depends upon 
his ability to relate what the degree represents with 
what the world demands of him.” 

“That may be, after he lands his job.” Myra 
spoke feelingly and reiterated the word ‘job’ as a 
monk might press to his rasped and naked body 
the hair shirt. “It’s the boycott that hurts! I 
found out its iron limitations when I went from 
place to place such as my education entitles me to 
and was turned away for lack of a diploma or 
degree.” She reiterated to herself that she was 
not talking to callers but to employers; and could 
not help the bitterness of her heart from flavoring 
the sweetness of her voice. 

“Mart, we must acknowledge that many recognize 
a truth only when presented in familiar garb,” said 
Mart’s father. 

“True, Father; that makes it more necessary for 
us to recognize individuality expressed in right 
relations of knowledge and activities. I see such an 
expression right here in this chair I’m sitting in. 


72 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


It is a beauty. It was not here the other day, was 
it, Miss Hamdon?” 

“No,” replied Myra. “It has taken the place of 
the chair that was too big; that one will go into 
a larger suite. This is the first thing we have com- 
pleted. I am glad you like it. I am pleased with 
the proportions myself; they are so well suited to 
this room.” 

“I wish you and your mother would go with 
father and me to a photoplay at the Marshfield this 
evening. There are some fine interiors. You may 
get some ideas. We shall be amused, anyway.” 

“It will be a pleasure,” said Mrs. Harndon. 

“It will be lovely,” said Myra. How long it was 
since she had had a good time! 

“What have you been doing all day?” Mart 
sounded very chummy as he swung along by her 
side. 

“I bought some overalls and set to work on some 
of the worst of the furniture. We have found several 
good reproductions of Sheraton, Chippendale and 
Hepplewhite. I like those for places such as ours. 
There is less chance for dust to accumulate under 
them. They are stronger than the originals, which 
of course are out of the question. We shall never 
buy trash. After I have rubbed these down, you 
shall see!” 


CHAPTER X 


“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is” 

hummed Myra within herself as the quartet went 
to the photo-play. “Why not keep this in mind 
when things go happily as well as when they go 
amiss.” 

She cast a covert glance at her mother, deep in 
conversation with the elder Manning, and wondered 
what were the inner workings of her aristocratic 
self. She, her mother, walking to a movie I Going 
to a movie at all seemed incredible and wholly in- 
compatible with her mother’s idea of refined enter- 
tainment. She laughed outright. Her amusement 
so occupied her attention that she stumbled on the 
curbstone. The quick upholding of Mart’s arm was 
very reassuring. Mart was a nice boy ; she liked him. 

“What are you laughing at? Let me into the 
joke.” 

“I was thinking.” 

“It is a treat to find a girl who does that. Give 
me a chance to think too.” 

“Do you really want to know?” 

“Of course I do.” 

“I was laughing at the thought of my mother 
deigning to go to the movies! I have heard her say 
all sorts of things against them, though to my 
knowledge she has never been to one.” 

“My father was the same not long ago; now he 

73 


74 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


is a devoted ‘picture’ lover. He felt so strongly at 
one time that he entered the lists actively against 
them. Like the scoffer who goes to jeer, he re- 
mained to praise. He saw great possibilities for 
them. It is largely through his efforts that it is 
becoming a great educational factor. His assistance 
in wise and just censoring is raising the movie to 
a photoplay and the fan to a picture lover. I hope 
you don’t scorn movies?” anxiously. 

“It is so long since I have been invited anywhere 
excepting out of a job, I should feel even like accept- 
ing an invitation to feed the swans on the Public 
Gardens,” she wanted to say; but all she did say was, 
“No indeed!” 

It was a wonderful picture. As Mart had pre- 
dicted, the interiors were fine. “Too fine to consider 
in the treatment of forty-dollar fiats,” Myra whis- 
pered to Mart. 

“Perhaps as a whole, yes; there is an alcove in 
the film just fiashed on that can be adapted to small 
spaces — ^isn’t that garden beautiful!” 

“We find what we go forth to seek, mother. 
I have detected the movies because of the fisticuffing, 
and the general disregard of eugenics and heredity 
in the plots. Last night I sought ideas for home- 
making and found it all lovely. I am teeming with 
plans.” 

“Your English, Myra! Your mind is — ” 

“I am deciding that I AM my mind; not that I 
simply borrow one on occasions. I waked, de- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 75 


pressed, this morning. Perhaps I am tired with 
unaccustomed work. My back feels cracked; I ache 
everywhere. Mother, do you know it is the longest 
since you and I have had any recreation?” 

So passed, in desultory conversation, Myra to her 
mother, the morning following the trip to the photo- 
play. 

“I know it is; but for that I should have halted 
a little at the suggestion of the movie. I wondered 
at first why it was not to be the theatre, but I under- 
stand now, better than I should have in the old days 
when I was not a wage earner. A business man has 
to listen all day. At the theatre, the same faculties 
are called into action; at the photoplay, different 
ones ; as well, there is fine opportunity for the study 
of physiognomy and phrenology. The whole enter- 
tainment provides for new activities. I enjoyed it 
thoroughly.” 

Mrs. Harndon laughed as she shook down her 
hair and began to toss it about in the sunlight. 
As it shimmered round her face, Myra exclaimed, 
“You are growing prettier every day. Instead of 
tiring you, this work is transforming you.” 

“It is renewing my mind, Myra. Mr. Manning Is 
a very interesting man. , He is coming up next week 
to talk with me about what he calls ‘his findings,’ 
as he lives the life of ‘every day.’ Myra, do I seem 
very old?” 

Her face and figure were inspiringly youthful as 
she spoke. 

“You look scarcely thirty. You had a few 


76 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


wrinkles when you were out of work, with no bank 
account and nothing to eat in prospect, a week 
ahead ; but the iron of a steady job is pressing those 
out. You must not overdo in your enthusiasm. I 
know I am as lame as a badger, however lame he is.” 

‘‘We must make our rent. It will not do to dally.” 
Mrs. Hamdon‘s reply was evasive. 

‘‘We will call on Judith more than I had intended 
and get this suite completed. The Mannings should 
see results. Judith wants to buy out a fruit shop; 
and while she is looking about for the right one 
she wishes to show her gratitude to me, for saving 
her gold from thieves, by scrubbing for me.” 

Myra worked industriously on an old table of 
graceful outline, the action of rubbing-down show- 
ing a gradually increasing output of energy, evi- 
dencing an increasing intensity of thought. Finally 
she raised her head, straightened her back, and 
sighed vigorously. 

‘‘Mother! To think of women like us having to 
hunt for our niches! Between the unions on one 
side and the educational restrictions and qualifica- 
tions on the other, a scullion can make a living 
where we can not! We are in the jaws of a 
crocodile!” 

‘‘The fine, individual research of sincere minds 
who work for the love of truth rather than for 
professorships must count for something, Myra.” 

‘‘As Mr. Manning said last night, knowledge must 
be standardized; but I do wonder how much follow- 
ing strictly a college curriculum and answering ten 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 77 


questions on given topics and receiving signed bits 
of paper in return, accomplishes this.” 

“Often it defeats its purpose. It holds standards 
down to commonplace. The real discoverers over- 
flow the moulds set by men and institutions. They 
talk with God.” 

“Louise Heard was coached for Rederag by a 
graduate of the male college, really part of the same 
university, you know. She told me, as a huge joke, 
that she did not know until six weeks before the 
exams that she would have to pass in Greek. She 
had never studied the language ; but her coach ‘knew 
the ropes’ and got her through. She told me exult- 
ingly that she could hold a chair in Greek, in a 
college, on the strength of answering the ten ques- 
tions of that examination. I can’t go into a primary 
school and teach children to see, hear,, touch, taste, 
smell, and THINK, because I have no diploma!” 

“Don’t be bitter, dear.” 

“Nellie Murst is earning three thousand a year 
teaching music in a college on the strength of her 
diploma; you and I know the teachers she purports 
to have studied with were on lecture and concert 
tours a large part of the year. She was coached by 
a girl of no ability in one of the lowest grades of 
the school and taught by hardworked mediocre 
subordinates. A few days before the close of the 
session the teachers of note returned, heard her 
play, offered a few suggestions, and their names 
appear on her credentials. I applied, as you know, 
for a position to teach music; but I couldn’t under- 


78 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE. 


stand their commonplace attitude and the examiners 
couldn’t understand me, I suppose. What would 
they think were I to say that I unite my soul with 
the soul of the composer in a common thought and 
am whispered secrets and that I learn more of their 
meaning by loving the keys of an instrument than 
by striking them!” 

“The maids have said they have seen you place 
your fingers over the keys as in blessing and have 
distinctly heard a tone float through the room. 
That is wholly as scientific as wireless telegraphy.” 

“Think of my making such a statement on an 
average examination paper.” 

“There is opportunity for sincerity and originality. 
It would be wonderful to teach others, to gain what 
life has to give through loving, instead of through 
striking.” 

“I can’t!” bitterly. “I have neither diploma nor 
degree and, now, no money to get either. I want, 
too, to keep my own style instead of being moulded 
into form.” 

“There should be as many styles as there are 
individuals.” 

“The educational world is recognizing only as 
many styles as there are universities ! Spirit is never 
explained through definition, never can be. Follow- 
ing mechanically set marks is not studying tech- 
nique; it is promoting imitation or automatism. To 
reduce spirit to definition is to kill the bird to find 
the song. I learned much, mother, that day God 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 79 


transmuted invisible desire into money. Why 
doesn’t He keep on! Why does He stop?”, 

“How do you know He is stopping? You con- 
stantly express a beautiful faith and the next minute 
damn material demonstration by bitterness and 
questioning. You lessen the power of your prayers 
by your doubts.” 

Myra looked curiously at her mother for the 
second time in a few days. 

“I am a chronic grumbler! I do stop occasionally 
to get in an avowal of faith, though! That habit 
shall grow stronger until it dominates me. Perhaps 
I can make the other die. I will if I can.” 

“You can, Myra, and I can; and we will!” 

They went merrily to work. To the tune of the 
sandpaper, the swing of the glue pot, the accurate 
hammering of tacks, the skilful twist of the screw- 
driver; to the rhythm of all these common move- 
ments of daily life, their faith flowed out in the 
words of Myra’s favorite song, 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is.” 

At a long table Mrs. Harndon cut lengths of paper 
with skilful accuracy. 

“We can afford to have this flat made up light,” 
they had agreed. “It is above the dust and grime of 
the street and the glare of reflections. Though the 
sun shines in, its rays are not too color-burning. 
Yes, we will have it light.” 


CHAPTER XI 


^^'T^ODAY, Mother, let’s fit a couch into that 
alcove we had about discarded as unusable. 
It is just the length to make a delightful lounging 
place, out of the way of eveiybody and close to 
everything. I can knock a -frame into shape out 
of some of the packing boxes we sent to the cellar 
after unpacking our invaluables,” said Myra one 
bright morning, over the breakfast table. 

“I am glad I took that course in automobile re- 
pairing with the other girls of our set at the 
beginning of the War,” she continued. “It has 
accustomed me to the feel of tools. Who knows! 
I may yet be Robinson Crusoe on a desert island 
of unexpected resources.” 

She kissed her mother and, having written a note 
to Judith to come the following day, ran gaily down 
the stairs into the street. 

After mailing her letter, the beauty of the day 
wooed her to a walk. She made a swift cut across 
to Beacon, to get a run if possible on the esplanade. 
If her old friends saw her, let them ! She would not 
slink from them any longer. Most of them would 
be out of town anyway. Some would have aided 
them had not her mother been so proud; not the 
right sort of pride, either, she was beginning to feel. 
People with money were not all the disagreeable 
creatures, novels had made her mother believe. 

8o 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 81 


They were kind when they had money; the 
Mannings were kind! Why doubt their class in 
such wholesale fashion as to run from them — 

“Hello, Myra!” Myra’s soliloquy was interrupted 
by a cheery voice. She looked up, her head was 
bent altogether too much these days, and encoun- 
tered the glad face of Ted Dingley. 

“Myra! Myra!” It was all he could say for a 
moment. “Myra, why do you treat your friends so! 
You run away and hide, and won’t let anyone do 
anything for you. Why do you do it!” 

“Because mother and I recall, too well, how 
‘has-beens’ haunt the doors of old time acquain- 
tances waiting for old clothes and scraps, claiming 
bosom friendships, only to tear their strength and 
substance from them, then going their way to roost 
like buzzards on the doorstep of some other victim 
till that one’s heart and patience are torn out too.” 

“You and your mother are not that sort; never 
could be. You have always given more than you 
could possibly gain from others; you always will.” 

“You are good to feel that way, Ted, but one does 
not know what penury will do till he has, not eaten 
and drunk, but starved and thirsted with it.” 

“Myra! Is it as bad as that?” 

“Ted! It is as bad as that!” 

“You went away, they tell me, so that everyone 
thought you were junketing over the country. Even 
those who had an inkling there were reverses, never 
suspected their extent. They thought that, at most, 
you were disappearing for a season to recoup. Lots 


82 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


of us do that, you know. No one felt at liberty to 
inquire. You were always so exclusive; you girt 
yourselves about with a magic circle of reserve 
friends scarcely have the temerity to penetrate.” 

“I am exclusive still. I live in a neighborhood 
where practically no one speaks to his neighbor, 
unless it be Johnny’s mother berating Jimmy’s 
mother from an upper window or the housetop, 
because Johnny’s gang is throwing bricks at 
Jimmy’s. Oh! We are most exclusive.” 

“Some one of us would have done something. 
My father would have, had you let him know your 
trouble. He might have saved something from the 
wreck. Why, until I met you at the station the 
day Mart Manning was raving over •you, I hadn’t 
an idea where to find you; and you know I love 
you, Myra. You never answered my letters. After 
I returned, I inquired at your bank; but they claimed 
not to know — ” 

“My bank,” bitterly, “did not know. They had cut 
our acquaintance.” 

“Myra, is it as bad as that?” 

“Ted, it is as bad as that.” 

“I should have looked you up the minute I found 
you but was ordered away; you J^now I am still in 
hospital service. I have just reached home; indeed 
I’m on my way there now from the train. Did you 
get my letter?” 

Myra nodded. 

“Why so cruel as not to answer me? Dear, let 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 83 


me take all your troubles off your shoulders. Let 
me do what I asked you, before I went to war!’' 

“No, Ted, I can’t.” 

“You do not know how I will work to win your 
love. I shall try so hard that you can’t help loving 
me; you can’t help it, I say. Myra! Myra!” 

The appeal was great to Myra’s sympathies; alas, 
not to her heart. 

“Ted, dear, I can’t. I don’t know why; I just 
can’t.” 

“What are you doing now to earn a living, my 
beautiful Myra?” 

“Gluing and nailing old chairs into usable condi- 
tion and cutting up chintz to cover them with.” 

“That is no better than making crazy quilts. 
Come to me, my Myra.” 

“Ted, dear, I can’t.” 

“At least give me a chance to help you.” 

“I can not, dear, especially you, whom — ” 

“How do you do, people! What luck to see you!” 

Looking up, they saw Mart Manning coming 
toward them, his countenance radiant. Ted gave 
a quick glance at Myra. What he saw in her face, 
caused his own to turn white. A keen pain shooting 
through his heart, he smothered his agony with a 
merry jest; and the days to come seemed very long, 
and the skies were brass, as he looked blankly 
toward their impenetrable arch. 


CHAPTER XII 


T he next day on reaching home after a trip 
down town, Myra heard music issuing from 
a hitherto empty, lower flat of the apartment house. 
Sitting before it was her mother. Her Angers were 
running ripplingly over the keys, as a heart runs 
in imagination through every nook and corner of 
a home, loved and long since departed from. Little 
touches of joy, of pain, of despair, of romance, were 
entwining their expression into vagrant chords, as 
her hands, led by memories, sought them out. Her 
face was transfigured, as there came again into her 
life, through that instrument of wood and wire, the 
right and opportunity of expression. 

“Myra, come in!” as the curious face of the 
daughter smiled into the illumined one of the 
mother. “Come in and let me tell you what this 
means. Mr. Manning has been here — the father. 
He brought this beautiful piano. He came person- 
ally, ‘to introduce his ward to her new surroundings.’ 
Pretty way to put it, isn’t it! He feels no place can 
have just the right atmosphere without music. I 
was led the other evening into confiding to him how 
much it has always meant to me, and how I miss it. 
Do you suppose,” hesitatingly, “that he sent the 
piano for the tenants, really, or because he knew I 
was hungry for a touch of the keys?” 

Myra wondered herself, but would not betray her' 
questioning. 


84 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 85 


“Both, perhaps. Those men look as if they were 
of the sort to do good to people, unawares.” 

“He has asked me to open a music and reading- 
room for the tenants, and Myra,” she almost whis- 
pered it in her joy, “I have never wanted to talk 
money and music at the same time; but he has 
offered me a regular salary. One of his plans is to 
hold receptions and sing fests. I am to report 
glimmerings of genius, that it may be fostered.” 

“A good place to find it. Do not most of the great 
singers come from the peasant classes, inured to 
trial and fatigue?” Then, gleefully, “Here is a 
musical job diploma-hunters can not touch — who 
is responding to the call of your piano in that 
splendid voice!” 

As in reply Judith Orono flew in at the door. With 
the emotionalism of her race, she embraced the 
piano, or tried to. Myra was next in her cyclonic 
onrush. At the piano stool, she caught Mrs. 
Harndon in her arms and lifted her, literally, from 
her seat. Then, taking a dramatic stand in the 
centre of the floor, she opened her voice to a flood 
of melody, and with the passion of the Scalchi of 
olden days poured forth, “I Have Lost My Eurydice!” 
As the last note quivered on the air, she burst into 
a storm of tears and sank sobbing to the floor. 

It was some time before she became calm. It 
was not for washing and scrubbing that she, Judith 
Orono, opera singer, had come to blessed America! 
It was to start a fruit business, since her voice in 
grand opera was no longer reliable, it being some- 


86 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


times like an angel’s and more often like the hags 
of Hades. She would have a fruit store with the 
money the young Saint Myra had saved from thieves 
and rascals. But for her angelic kindness, never 
would she pull paper from walls or brush them with 
ill-smelling odors! But for young Saint Myra, yes; 
especially, now that she might sing to the instru- 
ment blessed by the fingers of Signora Harndon, 
the mother of the sainted Myra. 

Mr. Manning appeared again at this juncture. To 
him, Judith poured forth again her ‘Eurydice.’ It 
developed that she had been a favorite singer in a 
local Italian opera house, but her voice had failed. 
Then the new country and thoughts of a little shop 
of her own won her. There had been no money to 
buy a shop until her father, a fruit grower, died. 
Then she had sold his little grove and had come 
with the proceeds to join her husband. 

Was it strange that just at this moment Mart 
should appear at the door of the suite? 

“They told me at the office you were here. Father, 
so I thought I would follow you. I have been to 
the fruit store at the corner. The owner is in 
trouble. His father has died in Italy. He wishes to 
go home; but there is his shop. He wants to sell it; 
but finds no purchaser.” 

“Here is a chance for you, Judith,” Mr. Manning 
turned to the ex-opera singer. “Would you like to 
go with me right now and look it over? The 
location is excellent.” 

Judith’s smattering of English, acquired to a sur- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 87 


prising extent in the recent weeks of her need for 
bread and spaghetti, came pouring forth. With 
streaming eyes, she ran from the piano, wrung out 
the mop she had left, lopsided and dripping, half in 
and half out of the water pail, when the siren of a 
piano lured her from her scrubbing. She wiped her 
hands on the skirt of her dress, threw it over her 
head in lieu of a kerchief, and ambled after her 
patron, more like a cow frightened by an automobile 
than a prima-donna, past, present, or future. 

The two returned in a short time. Yes, Judith 
liked the location ; but the price ! Did she not know 
these countrymen of hers! They would steal soldi 
from dead men’s eyes to get home to the land of the 
saints when they were homesick! She might do so 
herself when the time came that she was dying for 
the sight of the olive groves! She might have done 
so before now, so homesick had she been, but for 
the sainted Myra with the face of an angel who 
had strength to carry her and her bag, unaided, 
across the great new country, and conjure her hus- 
band from the unseen on the edge of a murky 
midnight, with the magic of her voice. But the 
price ! 

“Suppose we see Giovanni,” said Mr. Manning. 
“He is a kind man who loves his countrymen and 
wants them treated honestly. He often arbitrates, 
that is, goes between. He will see that the price is 
right for you both. He owns much valuable 
property, but he lives on Salem Street. He is ill in 
bed now, but will see me. I will take you to him in 


88 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


my car if you would like? You can arrange the 
trade at once. Then Lazarre can take the next 
boat home and you will feel like singing for us at 
our flat reception tomorrow night.” 

“We must not call your receptions flat, Mr. 
Manning. We are raising the degree of the property, 
so the receptions will always be suite!” 

“Myra, do not pun!” Mrs. Harndon’s traditions 
were jarred. 

“Mamsee, we are common now, delightfully 
common ! If highbrows could once feel how delight- 
ful it is to be commonplace they would never again 
pose at the tower window of Bluebeard’s castle, 
society!” 

It needed but a few minutes by motor to reach 
Giovanni. As Judith sank into the soft cushions 
of the car, her manner underwent a series of trans- 
formations, most interesting to Mr. Manning, 
student as he was of the effects of surroundings on 
human beings. Judith emerged from the scullery 
maid, and the immigrant with every man’s hand 
against her, to one after another of the characters 
of opera and of drama in whose personalities and 
wardrobes she had often revelled. These changes 
were wholly unconscious, and, far from distracting 
her thoughts from the intended investment, they 
were reinforcing her, giving her poise and a subtle 
assurance. Mr. Manning realized why she had been 
a favorite on the stage before flesh and disappoint- 
ment had weighed her down. 

When the motor stopped at their destination 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 89 


Fanny Davenport herself could not have made a 
more impressive descent. She might have been the 
princess of the old time tale who won in marriage 
the prince of the realm. He who ignored the beauty 
of one daughter and the learning of the second fell 
victim to the grace of her who stepped from the 
high state coach, with step as sure and light as a 
sunbeam floating on the air. Judith might have 
provided text to the mothers of long ago who trained 
their daughters in manner and bearing royal. She 
could easily have parallelled her ascent to Giovanni’s 
with her descent from the limousine; but when she 
faced the dark, ill-smelling entry, there came a 
sudden reversion to type. The suggestion that had 
caused the metamorphosis retired into the murk of 
her habit. The suggestion of her usual custom 
overcame the subtle, delicate one of the moment 
past. She yielded to it as she looked up at the 
narrow, insecure stairs leading from the entry of 
ill savor up, up into darkness and ending nowhere 
so far as she could discern. Her back doubled to 
the burden of ascent until it became almost a 
crescent. She clung desperately to the uncertain 
handrail, muttering on the way that if all the operas 
and the priests had not shown her that hell was 
down, she should surely believe that she was on 
the way there, going up. 

All journeys end sometime and somewhere. 
Judith’s ended at the entrance to Giovanni’s room. 
The knock on the door was followed by a summons 
to enter. 


90 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


Seven or eight children, whose altercations had 
heralded the landing, were playing, or quarreling, 
about the room. Mr. Manning thought they were 
doing one; Judith, the other. There were several 
cats and dogs, their attitudes towards each other 
suggesting the same difference of opinion. A woman 
was washing clothes. The steam from the suds 
filled the air as with a fog. It was some time before 
Mr. Manning distinguished two girls sevnng by a 
dirty window, and Giovanni In a bed covered with 
ragged and unspeakably soiled comforters. 

Giovanni was better; soon he would be out to sign 
the deeds for the new corner lot. He had the fifty 
thousand dollars. Did Mr. Manning come with the 
deeds, knowing he could not that day rise from the 
bed? 

Drawing apart a tear ill the straw mattress, 
Giovanni drew forth a roll of bills so large his two 
hands could scarcely encircle it. 

“Shall I count it?” 

“I did not come to see about the real estate today. 
Put the money back. But, man, you should not 
have fifty thousand dollars in a place like this!” 

“How, place like this! It is my home. Signor! 
My baba, my mama, my aunties, my cousins, my 
dogs, who pass these! I hate the sickness, that I 
gain not the deeds for the corner lot. After that, 
I be well! Soon, my home is where the esplanade 
be for my baba. I walked the streets with strings 
for the shoes. I will have coat of fur, me and my 
mama and the baba. My home it be frescoed with 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 91 


angels and big men like the Vatican. I lif, then! I lif !” 

“If the deeds will make you well, they shall be 
signed here, this evening. Now, Signora Orono 
wants to buy Lazarre's fruit stand. Can you tell 
her what she should pay?'' 

“Good shop; it makes well.'' 

He turned to Judith and for the first time, fixed 
his eyes intently upon her. 

“Is your papa, your grandpapa, Orono of the 
fruitlands?" 

“Si, si. Signor Giovanni." 

“Are you well enough to see both today, Lazarre 
and the men with the deeds for the comer lot?" 
said Mr. Manning. 

“Si, Signor. The deeds mine and on the way to 
the record are to me more than ten of these!" He 
tossed aside a bottle of pills as he spoke. “Money, 
Signor, ees eet not more than peels?" 

“When it inspires courage in yourself and helpful- 
ness to your fellows, as yours does, yes. And, 
Giovanni, I have told you before that you should 
get your family out of this close street. Look 
farther than the esplanade. Buy a place out of 
town; buy a motor for yourself and the babies and 
the wife. Come to town for business; live in the 
country; sleep in God's fresh air and bring up the 
baba so there will never be need for pills. Both 
Lazarre and the deeds shall be here in half an hour." 

^‘Si, si. I shall have the comer lot; Signora Orono, 
the shop; and Lazarre shall be on the sea full soon, 
Addio!" 


CHAPTER XIII 


T he next day work on the flat gave way to 
preparations for the reception. 

Judith had flnished making the windows of the 
lower suite shine as windows should, and was 
moving her stepladder and pail to the closet, when 
the attention of the workers was arrested by the 
sudden deposit from the outside of a lot of mud 
upon the shining glass. This was followed by a 
series of hoots and cat calls. 

Judith impetuously rushed toward the door but 
Myra quickly motioned her to silence, placing hel 
finger impressively on her lips. 

Judith writhed under the restraint; her brawny 
arms twitched as if for fight, as they had done the 
first day Myra saw her in the station. 

Myra stepped softly to her side and hummed 
gently in her ear, 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is.” 

‘‘That don’t ma-ke no matter! I get at that imp 
and put heem where Meph put Faust, I will!” 

Judith was learning American with surprising 
rapidity. It goes without saying that slang of every 
tongue being constantly rung into her ears, slang 
made up a large part of her speech in the newly 
acquired language. 

‘‘I knock his bally head off, ain’t it!” 

92 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 93 


Myra almost laughed, but not quite. 

Mrs. Harndon said, “You are a constant puzzle, 
Myra. When there is nothing to depress you, you 
are often disturbed. Let something really demand 
optimism, you are there with that song on your lips. 
You gain results, too. I don’t see how!” 

“Because God is good and is sorry for those of 
little faith. Judgment, mercy, faith! I must utilize 
all three in this predicament. Much depends on the 
way this first expression of the neighborhood is 
handled. It won’t do to fight mud with mud.” 

A liberal bespatterment thudded against the 
second window of the three that opened on the 
street. Judith raved and tore her hair with operatic 
fervor. Again Myra’s detaining hand was laid upon 
her arm. 

“I am going to look at heem — ” 

“No, Judith, he is just doing it to attract attention. 
He will be puzzled when he is not noticed.’’ 

Thud! Another bucket of the soft mud from the 
slimy street. 

“He will break the glass!” Mrs. Harndon was 
nervous. 

“I think not. . He is peering in to see how we are 
taking it. He will tire presently. Digging mud is, 
not entertaining, with neither audience nor pay.” 

At length there was a cessasion of hostilities, 
though Myra, keenly observant, knew the miscreant 
was still there. Evidently he could no longer see 
through the windows defaced by his hand and was 
mystified at the lack of retaliation. He was dis- 


94 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


gusted. As Myra had suspected, fight was the joy 
of his life. Fighting called attention to himself and 
fed his egotism. 

As he leaned, disappointed and vindictive, against 
the wall he heard the door of the apartment house 
open. There stole into his ears the gentle singing 
of a woman. She was outside the range of his 
vision, but he could distinctly hear her words. She 
was humming one of the popular songs of the day 
and the lilt of it was very fetching. The boy, for 
the despoiler was a boy about twelve, craned his 
neck insolently and inquisitively in her direction. 
She was sweeping out the entrance and instead of 
looking grumpy because she had to do it, she was 
very happy. She was a peach. Her singing made 
him want to fiing away the dirty smelly bucket and 
kick his feet about on the sidewalk in time to her 
song. 

With Willy, to feel like doing a thing was to do it. 
He dropped the bucket with a rattle and a clatter 
and with the raucous tones of a boy whose voice 
is attaining deeper tonality, joined the chorus impu- 
dently, leaping with the antics of a goat about the 
sidewalk. 

If he had thought to gain attention by his antics, 
he was disappointed. With a final swish of her 
broom, Myra went in and closed the door. 

Willy, stood outside, piqued and angry. While he 
was wondering how to attract the peach’s attention, - 
the door opened again. It shut immediately, before 
he had a chance to see anything. It remained 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 95 


closed just long enough to whet, not to discourage, 
his curiosity, then opened again. This peach was 
different from the settlement people and the folks 
that came bothering about you trying to teach you 
things. She was minding her own business and 
Willy was becoming more and more anxious to dis- 
cover what that business was. 

He watched the door so intently that it almost 
seemed as if his desire pried it open. At all events, 
it unclosed presently and his “peach” appeared, with 
the assistance of another woman moving a big ice- 
cream freezer right into the range of his vision. 
Willy knew an icecream freezer when he saw it, 
although seldom had he tasted any of the contents. 
Even cones were generally beyond his means. 
When he saw a freezer of such dimensions as this 
one, he knew there was something doing. Was it 
a wedding? Was there any way he could get in on 
a bit of it? It was a thing worth planning for and 
working toward. The peach had disappeared. 
What a fool he had been to dirty up the windows 
so’s he couldn’t see what was going on inside! He 
wondered if the lady would come out again. She 
was a lady, now, since she was on terms so intimate 
with an icecream freezer. What was she going to 
do! Run a store? Perhaps he could do her errands 
and get pay in icecream and nickels. 

At last the lady come to the door again, still 
singing the sort of tune that makes you want to 
kick up your heels on the sidewalk. Willy did not 
join impudently in the chorus this time. He stood 


96 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


still and watched her. She and her helper were 
moving the freezer about inside the door, most 
tantalizingly, just beyond the range of his vision. 
He could not tell whether it was full or had been 
relieved of its delectable contents. It was too big 
a thing for a lady to be handling; he felt this acutely 
now. That guy didn’t seem to be helping a bit. 
He ought to offer to do something! 

The pretty lady twisted and turned the big tub, 
and Willy edged nearer the door until he could sniff 
the briny odor of salt, feel the cold of the ice, and 
above all smell the flavor of real pineapple — none 
of your coal tar stuff. It would have seemed to 
Willy, had his perceptions in that direction 'been a 
trifle keener, that she pushed the freezer slightly in 
his direction as he edged closer to the doorway, that 
the delicious odor might, the more readily, insinuate 
itself into his alertly vibrating nostrils. 

Then he heard music from within. Again he tried 
to peer through windows. His own work defeated 
his attempt. 

He edged closer to Myra. She had no appearance 
of noticing him. If he wanted attention, he must 
speak to her. 

“Want some help. Lady?” 

Myra did not seem to hear. She gave the freezer 
an extra tug and stopped to wipe her forehead. 
Willy’s heart was wrung with pity at her exhaustion 
from such labors as, he now felt assured, should 
be performed by him. 

The music stole softly and mysteriously into the 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 97 


open from the room he had made to himself, a 
chamber of mysteries. 

“Say! That ain’t no work for a lady. Lemme 
help lug it. Does yer want it inside?” 

How sincerely he hoped she did. He wondered if 
the lady playing was as nice as this one. 

“That is kind of you.” Myra turned and looked 
at him pleasantly. It was interesting to note with 
what ease the churn was handled at this juncture. 

“Is yer runnin’ an icecream dive?” asked Willy 
politely. “I’ll bring yer some kids as can buy of yer. 
I can’t. I ain’t got no money.” 

If he expected her to say she would give him some 
ice cream in exchange for this courtesy, he was 
mistaken. Myra did not know much of human 
nature through business or settlement work; but 
in society, in the old days, she had been past mistress 
in winning men and women to her banner. Would 
not similar tactics serve here? Are the north side 
and the south, the east and the west, so very differ- 
ent in the primary and final analyses? Have not 
most of the habitues of the one been, at some time, 
habitues of the other? Note herself and her mother, 
now on this side of the bridge, and recall their erst- 
while neighbor on the avenue, directly from “over 
here!” 

“We are getting ready for a party. Mr. Manning 
is to entertain his tenants tonight. If you are one, 
you must have heard of it. It is too bad if you are 
not—*’ 


98 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


“How come I ain’t! I lives in one of Mr. 
Manning’s places!” 

“Then you and your father and mother should 
come. Perhaps they know about it and have not 
thought to tell you. Ask them to be sure to be here.” 

“Is that lady goin’ ter play?” 

“Yes.” 

“Is she as pretty as you?” 

“I think she is prettier. She is my mother. Be 
sure to come.” 

This was too good to be true! He, an invited 
guest, and had not known it! He, within the sacred 
circle, even while feeling miffed and mopish because 
he was thinking of himself as outside the fun. He! 
To have some icecream in a perfectly legitimate 
fashion without either begging or stealing! It was 
remarkable! He swelled with pride. This sensa- 
tion was followed immediately by another one: how 
attract attention to himself at the party, that he 
might have a good time finding out what people 
thought of him, and feeling himself luminously in 
the public eye ! Already he was concocting mischief 
for himself and the gang. 

“We need someone to help us to introduce people 
and see that everyone is served to refreshments; 
someone who knows everybody and is very polite, 
so the guests will say they have never before been 
treated so courteously or had so good a time. Are 
you sure you belong to the invited guests?” 

“Sure! I lives right over there.” Willy pointed 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 99 

down the street. “The agent threatened to ship us 
if I smashed any more windows.” He looked at 
Myra egotistically, expecting condemnation and 
evidently proud of his offense. He felt distinctly 
grieved when Myra paid no attention to his state- 
ment. 

“I must go in now; there is a great deal to do. 
We must wash the windows for one thing. Then 
we must arrange the dishes on the tables.” 

“Can’t I come in?” 

“Not to look on. You may help, if you feel like it.” 

“How much’ll you pay me?” 

“Nothing. It is only as a special favor that you 
may help me.” 

“What kin I do?” 

“I have a fine step ladder, a big tall one. It takes 
skill to climb it. Do you suppose you can clean the 
outside of the windows? Mr. Manning has given us 
a hose. You can wash the windows off with that 
and wipe them down with the rubber brush.” 

“You ought ter pay me something.” 

“Not a penny.” 

Willy thought it over. He did not like the idea 
of doing anything for anybody without money, and 
a barter and a fuss at that. But this lady did not 
give you a chance to fuss. It was put up or shut up 
with her. Besides, here was a chance to use a hose; 
to drench some enemy of the alley, should such 
stray within his reach; to get into the good graces 
of the pretty lady so closely allied with the icecream 
freezer that she could, if she would, let him have 


100 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


as much icecream as his stomach could hold, some- 
thing that never before had come within the range 
of his possibilities. 

Gleefully, he went inside for the ladder, pausing 
for a curious glance at the lady playing on the piano. 
In a few minutes, a deluge of clear water was freeing 
the windows from the slime of the dirty street. 


CHAPTER XIV 




E vening was coming on apace. Mrs. Harndon 
had left the piano to dress. A few hasty 
directions to Judith about the care of the hose and 
stepladder, and Myra followed her mother. She 
found her laying out a plain black dress. 

“Mamsee, that won’t do. We should have talked 
over dress, before. Ella Wheeler Wilcox was not 
‘vain’ but wise, because, when invited, she often 
asked what she was expected to wear. Clothes 
are a necessity, likewise, a bore. She got them off 
her mind and ready to put on her body. That leaves 
the mind free for actibn.” 

“Shouldn’t we give these people an example of 
quiet dressing?” said Mrs. Harndon, platitudinously. 

“That doesn’t sound like you! These people are 
not coming here tonight to be taught, but to see 
what Mr. Manning’s game is. Is he going to 
smoothe over with stale cake and icecream made 
of honey and lard, an increase of rent, or signs: 
no children ! I went to Hull House with Sadie Baine 
one time, not dressed to honor the occasion, and was 
nearly mobbed after a fashion.” 

Myra was tossing coils of hair into a bewitching 
coiffeur and was cold-creaming her face quite as if 
for a state dinner. 

“What would you like me to wear?” 

“What do you say to that adorable French wis- 

lOI 


102 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


tana gown you were looking over the other day? 
It is worthy of any time, for though old in years 
it is ever new in composition. It is art. That other 
thing on the bed is only style.” 

“If your wish is to cater to the observers, will they 
appreciate so simple a gown?” 

“We from the other side of the bridge are funny, 
Mamsee! We pass stale cake and weak tea to the 
finest cooks when we give fetes, and fancy they will 
be fiattered into not knowing it. We would discharge 
them were they to give us, from our kitchens, what 
we give them from our patronage. As to dressing: 
these over here, are the very ones who study quality 
and artistic modes of dress every day. Who but these 
introduce us over the counters and in the fitting 
rooms, to the newest and finest the markets afford! 
When we don’t know quality, whom do we trust but 
these very men and women who can tell across the 
room if you or I have been cheated into buying imi- 
tation lace for rose point, and know whether our 
ostrich plumes are whole ones or pieced together — I 
wonder what that whooping is about down in the 
street. It sounds like my egotist, Willy.” 

Myra put her head out of the window. The 
commotion was too close to the house for her to 
discern its cause. She gave a final touch to her 
dress and, dainty in filmy white net of years past 
but perfect in the lines that know no season, ran 
down to the street. 

Through the glass of the outer door she saw two 
men glistening with water and drenched from head 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 103 


to foot. As she opened the door she heard laughter; 
then a pleasant voice, not at all angry. 

“You young rascal, what do you mean by drown- 
ing us out this way. Isn’t that hose the one we 
sent up here to wash windows with?” 

Anxiously thinking she might be responsible for 
the accident, through not putting away the hose, 
herself, Myra opened the door. There were Mr. 
Manning and Mart, like good natured mermen, and 
Willy, who in the dim light had mistaken these men 
for some enemies of his gang; he was standing a 
little frightened but wholly egotistical before them. 
At least he had attracted attention. 

“Mr. Manning! I am so sorry! I should have 
put away the hose, myself.” Myra was contrite; but 
wholly amused. 

“Fiend!” It was Judith who spoke. “I haf to 
dress! I leave heem one leetle minute! I tell heem 
where to put the hose! Fiend!” 

Much more that was unintelligible burst from 
Judith’s lips as she stood buttoning and arranging 
the blue silk dress with the broad white lace. She 
was gesticulating ^ violently, and her attempts to 
fasten her attire were a series of putting together 
and tearing apart the fastenings, in order to begin 
again. 

The men were laughing heartily at being drenched 
on this, one of the hottest nights of the year. So 
wholly was their attention riveted on the radiant 
Myra, a jewel in the dark setting of her surround- 
ings, that they forgot Willy, who stood at first dis- 


104 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


turbed and then rebellious, that he had “pulled off 
a stunt” only to be ignored. He gave Mart a sudden 
punch. 

“What’s that for?” asked Mart, sharply. 

“So’s you’ll speak to me. I goes along quiet and 
nobody speaks to me; but if I hits ’em they looks 
at me.” 

An expression of tenderness crept into the eyes 
of the elder Manning. “Poor little chap! He wants 
some ’tention.” 

Willy stood screwing his toes. He did not under- 
stand tenderness. The usual weapon of defence 
against him was scolding or cursing. This method 
of Mr. Manning’s made him inquisitive. He became 
so intent upon these new types of human beings 
that for the moment he forgot himself. 

“I wish I could afford you assistance,” Myra 
looked winsomely sympathetic. 

“I kinder wish it wasn’t you,” Willy continued to 
look quizzingly at the men who stood with faces 
dripping, taking their ducking so very decently. 

“We thank you just the same. Miss Harndon. 
Boy, run, get us a taxi. Probably there will be one 
at the drug store corner.” 

“There’s a garage nearer. I can get you one in 
a jiffy.” 

“I shall not pay you, understand. You are to get 
us out of the trouble you have spattered us into. 
Come back and put up the hose for Miss Harndon. 
Run, now. We all want to be ready for the party.” 

Willy returned promptly and put up the hose. He 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 105 


was exultant over his success at attracting atten- 
tion ; but dissatisfied at not holding it. What was the 
reason? Was it the clothes? He looked do^n at 
his own. He couldn’t get attention by changing 
those, for he had no others. He decided it was not 
clothes. The men did not have big watch chains 
strapped across their waistcoats nor big pins in 
their ties. No, it was not clothes. Perhaps the men 
attracted the lady’s attention away from him be- 
cause they were not dressed that way. And the lady! 
Why, she didn’t have a single pin on and not a bit 
of trimming, and her ears showed! She did look so 
dear that Willy forgot himself again, for thinking 
of her. How sweet her face was, and her hands! 
And her hair, didn’t that shine! Perhaps if his hair 
looked so — 

“Willy, run home and dress,” she was saying. 
“Did you get wet?” 

“No, m’am; an’ I ain’t got no other clothes.” 

“Come into the suite then, and wash your face 
and comb your hair. Mr. Manning has arranged 
dressing rooms for men and women. Here is a 
comb.” 

Willy was not sure that he had ever seen a whole 
comb before. Here was one dedicated to his sole 
use. He drenched his head with water, and after 
combing his hair so the locks of the crown of his 
head turned the wrong way and stuck up like a 
cock’s comb, he presented himself proudly before 
Mrs. Harndon and Myra. .They looked very beauti- 
ful to him. Judith had her dress buttoned by this 


106 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


time, and was happily arranging music on the stand 
near the piano. She was to sing; the first time in a 
long while. It did not matter to her what the 
audience, “so it was an audience.” As to music, 
she was going to sing Eurydice so gloriously that 
the hearers would prefer it far above the favorite 
jazz and applaud accordingly. 

As the three stood there, it seeped into Willy’s 
consciousness that Myra and Mrs. Hamdon looked 
as if they were clean all over, and Judith looked as 
if she had cleaned herself only just as far as she 
thought one could see. Come to think of it, that 
is what he had done. 

His analysis was interrupted by Myra. 

“Come to the dressing room with me, Willy, boy, 
and I will make your hair look better. I want you 
to look very nice when you pass the cake.” 

When they reached the dressing room Myra 
rubbed Willy’s head as nearly dry as she could, with 
a rough towel; then with soft and skillful touches 
she lightened its plastered appearance. The use of 
a bit more soap and water behind the ears and as 
far down the neck as his clothing would admit, and 
the Willy who stepped from the dressing room to the 
reception room felt himself well equipped to serve 
the guests. He was anxious, as never before, to 
receive, not attention of any sort, but to receive 
attention with enconiums at the close of the evening, 
for serving well. 


CHAPTER XV 


^ I ^HEY came; stragglingly at first, then with an 
onrush that filled the rooms. Among the first 
were Mr. Manning and Mart and Ted Dingley, who 
had found out about the affair and begged an invi- 
tation, coming with the intense will and desire to 
rescue his beautiful Myra from the quicksands of 
the social order into which he saw her sinking. 

His first words to her were (and they were whis- 
pered low) : “My God, Myra, let me take you out 
of this! I can't bear to see you swamped. Your 
place is with me. I can give you plenty of humani- 
tarianism in the reconstruction hospitals if you will 
work, but don’t stay in this rabble about here. For 
God’s sake, Myra, let me take care of you, or, if you 
object to that, let us work together.” 

“I am no humanitarian, Ted. Necessity brought 
me here, and if ‘man’s necessity is God’s oppor- 
tunity,’ and He has found this place for me, I will 
stay.” 

“Myra, we don’t remain static. We can’t, even if 
we wish to. Why, then, try to when there is every 
reason you should not. The reconstruction 
hospitals — ” 

“Why not work with patients, shell-shocked from 
the bombs of daily life battles, before they get into 
hospitals for body or for mind! The open world 
should be their hospital! But I must keep steady, 

107 


108 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


Ted, to meet these arrivals. Mr. Manning is de- 
pending on us to make a success. I do not say it 
is easy. I have always shrunk from dirt and 
ineptitude.” 

“I don’t see why my love for you should make it 
any harder.” 

“Not your love, dear, it is my part of it that hurts 
me. It takes my strength away.” 

“I shall not give you up!” 

He moved, to make place for a little, withered old 
woman who must have been well into the eighties. 
Her dress, of the heavy silk this generation reads 
of (the kind that ‘stands alone’), trailed upon the 
floor. For years it had swept up the dust of the 
streets in its voluminous folds until its pristine 
blackness had changed to iron gray. Great breadths 
of black, thread lace were swathed about places 
where the initiated must know patches were con- 
cealed. Gathered about the shoulders and caught 
gracefully at the elbows was draped a black lace 
shawl, as gray and dusty as its contemporary, the 
dress. A scaff of flue Spanish lace, darned in many 
places with a none too skilful hand, was thrown, 
mantilla fashion, over hair that, scanty and un- 
kempt, straggled relentlessly out of place. The old 
woman’s eyes were keen and alert, though the head 
that once must have balanced proudly and erectly 
on its column had swerved from the perpendicular 
and tipped slightly to one side, giving her somewhat 
the appearance of a bird timid enough to fly away 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 109 


yet inquisitive enough to venture nearer to the object 
that had lured her to hop hither. 

“I am not in the habit of consorting with the 
rabble of this section,” she began with quaint 
pedantry, sidling up to Mrs. Harndon as to a friend 
of long ago, “but when my esteemed friend, Mr. 
Manning, sent me a personal invitation — indeed, 
himself came to extend the invitation — I felt I should 
issue from my seclusion, and, as he graciously ex- 
presses it, lend the dignity of. my presence, to the 
occasion. You may recall, my dear, my father was 
Senator Fruth, and my institution of learning the 
select school of this brilliant city in the days of 
Mr. Manning’s mother. Ah! a winsome lassie was 
she ! When Mr. Manning acquired this property he 
sought me out, and greatly did I need his seeking. 
He begged me to make this spot my home, that I 
might lend esprit to the locality.” 

She shook her head as if its weight were too great 
for her to carry, and regardless of the line waiting 
to be presented to Mrs. Harndon, went monotoning 
on. 

“I fear I have not been true to his expectations, 
for I was tired, dear, very tired, and the children ! 
saw wrecking the landscape with debris, through 
their wanton spirit of destruction, checked my ardor 
to educate youth. I retired, until now, except as I 
go to the diet kitchen for my soup and bread, I am 
rarely seen upon the street.” 

At this moment she spied Willy standing at the 
inner entrance emulating the highbred footman of 


110 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


the movies and accosting new comers with the 
phrase, “Ladies’ dressing room to the front, gents’ 
to the rear.” 

As he caught the little old lady’s eye he seemed 
drawn irresistibly from his post to her vicinity, even 
as her impelling gaze must, in the olden days, have 
gripped and drawn a miscreant pupil to her side. 
He overheard her say, “Ah! there is that terrible 
youth who leads what they vulgarly call the gang, 
— that Willy — Ah! Willy, my son,” as she saw his 
approach, “you look less like the wild man of Borneo 
than usual. Continue to improve and you may in 
time become a respectable member of society, 
though the spirit of progress must feel that as yet 
she is far from embracing you.” 

Willy wanted to run out his tongue, in case what 
the little preceptress said was hostile; but as he did 
not know exactly what she meant, he was silent. 
Whatever she was saying would be praise, anyway, 
he finally argued. If she was saying he was bad 
he wanted to be the leader of the gang; if she was 
saying he was good, even by that nambypamby 
admission, he was established in her attention. 
But who was the Wild Man of Borneo! 

Mart adroitly slipped to the little preceptress’ side 
at this juncture and relieved the congestion about 
the Harndons by leading her away from the host- 
esses to the dining-room. 

Willy watched the retreat of the preceptress on 
the arm of Mart Manning with an eye that would 
have augured ill for the little old lady had she been 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 111 


more at his mercy. After the two were well on their 
way to the refreshment room, a place Willy was 
longing to visit but could not yet on account of his 
duties, he turned in a fiery manner to Mrs. Harndon. 

“W’at did that ol’ guy mean w’en she said I looked 
lessen usual like the Wild Man of Borneo?” he de- 
manded truculently. 

As he met Mrs. Harndon’s pleasant expression, 
his own changed somewhat. He snuggled up to 
her and repeated the question in a raucous whisper. 

Though his words were checked, his spirit did not 
prevent his casting vindictive glances in the direction 
of the departing preceptress. She was leaning self- 
consciously and daintily on Mart’s arm, her dingy 
train sweeping behind her. The triumphal march 
toward the dining room was frequently halted by 
other guests who, thinking themselves treading solid 
floors, found their feet planted on moving drygoods. 
Finally the exodus was accomplished and the cur- 
rents of humanity set smoothly in one direction; 
“toward the room of eats,” Willy whispered to a 
pal, as, hungry but patient, he stuck to his post. 

With a strange sense of comfort in his little heart 
he felt himself on terms of sufficient intimacy with 
the beautiful hostesses to whisper in Mrs. Harndon’s 
ear, before returning to the door to announce a new 
influx of guests, “Gee! I wisht I wuz ridin’ on that 
floor sweeper she’s trailin’ behind her. Them guys 
w’at’s trendin’ on it thinks they’s been invited to a 
boatin’ party or a toboggan slide. I’ll get on it w’en 
she comes out — mebbe.” Faltering as he met the 


112 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


friendly and beautiful eyes of Mrs. Harndon, he 
hastened to cover the last word, if possible, by ask- 
ing, “Say, who is the Wild Man of Borneo an’ w’at 
does he look like?” 

“Borneo is a country far away from here. The 
preceptress was complimenting you on your im- 
proved appearance.” 

Ah! Here was one answer to his question, ‘what 
attracts attention.’ Evidently an improved appear- 
ance is one way, he thought; but he said, “She’d 
better, or I’ll steal her milk, mornin’s.” 

“Mr. Smith, will you pass the cake?” Myra’s 
sweet voice sounded close beside him in tones so 
clear that the words were distinctly audible to some 
of the gang who were clustered nearby, watching, 
catlike and alert, to follow any tactics subtly sug- 
gested by the manner of their leader. 

Willy straightened himself, grew in his own esti- 
mation many inches taller; even to the eyes of the 
observer, he was at least two inches taller as his 
defiant slouch disappeared before this call to man- 
hood. Mister! Should a Mister ride into or out of a 
dining room on so poor a vehicle as the old train 
of a guy like that! Indeed no! Feet for Men! 

Soon Myra saw him, with manner distinctly agree- 
able, seeking out some timid, elderly women in a 
corner, and treating them as nearly as he could, 
as Mr. Mart was treating the ‘guy.’ He was usher- 
ing them into the refreshment room, seeing they 
were served with their hearts’ desires; and, finally, 
finishing up his evening with his seventh saucer of 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 113 


icecream, beside one of the prettiest girls of his own 
age at the party; the gang following his example 
in a manner that did credit to his generalship. 

When the preceptress reached the dining room all 
her sang froid was summoned to hide her pleasure 
at the unaccustomed viands, and her rabid desire 
to partake of them. The concealment of the latter 
was more possible because the exhausted condition 
of the long denied digestive organs were unequal 
to receiving what her appetite craved. She seized 
occasions, when Mart’s attention was distracted, to 
take bits of the delicious and nutritious food. 
Mastication of this, when his attention returned to 
her, kept her rather silent through what was to 
her a feast of the gods after the enforced restrictions 
of the years. But she spoke from time to time, 
reminiscently and with dainty pedantry, of matters 
connected with the past. 

“I did invent an equipment now used in sleeping 
coaches and in the staterooms of many steamers,” 
she managed to tell him between swallows. “Per- 
haps,” with a gleam of old time charm flashing from 
weary eyes, “perhaps I found it easier to extract 
‘Evidences of Christianity’ from between pasteboard 
covers on my library shelves, than from the business 
methods of those who sought my patents; for never 
did more than a hundred dollars reach me in recom- 
pense. ‘Evidences of Christianity’,” she sighed, “are 
more easily found between pasteboard covers than 
in human hearts.” 

Meanwhile Mrs. Harndon was talking to the 


114 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“Once Richest Man in Town.” His Prince Albert 
coat was of fine broadcloth. His beaver was held 
in approved fashion in his slender well-formed hand. 
He was perfectly groomed and shaven. The fine- 
ness of the gentleman had not been merged, as 
had the gentlewomanliness of the preceptress, in 
the dirt and grime of the accumulated years. 

“I tired of the fight with life, Madame, after they 
all left me,” he was saying, “I lost interest when my 
• wife and children died. • When one loses interest, 
one loses judgment; judgment gone, one is incau- 
tious. The rest of the tale is easily read. I am 
drifted here on the tide with fiotsam and jetsam. 
I do not claim even to be salvage. It was not on 
the tides of extravagances or excesses that I drifted 
here. I just grew tired. May I assist you in serving 
some of these ladies?” Nothing but the slight 
accent on the word betrayed the spirit of irony. 

“Yes; take that ethereal looking little woman 
across the room into supper if you will.” It was 
Myra who said this. In subtle fashion she was 
learning the histories of these denizens of the slums, 
of quite another sort from those supposed to be its 
only habitues. Corralled in the open through the 
courtesy of a gentleman who was anxious to know 
his tenants for mutual pleasure, a strange menagerie 
was gathering, drawn in from human wildernesses. 
Perhaps within these prescribed limitations crea- 
tures may again become men and women; a salon 
may evolve, as in the days of Madame de StaH, to 
which the card-playing, conversation-lacking, plea- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 115 


sure-craving society on the other side of the bridge 
may not aspire; for limitations are like the horizon: 
they recede as we advance. 

“She is an authoress of thirty years ago/' Myra 
was saying. “At that time her name was on every 
tongue, her books on the library tables of book- 
lovers and their imitators. But styles have changed 
in literature as in other things. The correct, well- 
Englished, well-bred chit-chat that filled her letters 
in the journals and magazines, little by little failed 
to meet the demand. Her expression, once ‘crystal 
clear,' is called archaic! In one sense she is dead; 
in quite another she lives here." 

“Pray introduce me. I recall her well. I was a 
regular purchaser of her books. They served to 
pass many an hour when I sought release from 
business strain, before I grew so tired." 

They went over to the authoress; almost trans- 
lucent, so ethereal was she. In a moment Myra 
had the pleasure of seeing dull eyes brighten as 
old times became present moments. 

Mr. Manning was moving about the rooms, his 
social sense sorting and mixing the guests. He bore 
down at just the right moment and with just the 
right word upon some mischief-monging group and 
chemicalized it with the sunshine of his smile, bring- 
ing down a different precipitate with the changing 
of the test. Frowzy Jim O’Gorham was soon roaring 
with laughter at the crude witticisms of Tessie 
Leach, and Prezia Lorelle, the model, was helpfully 
analyzing some snapshots of Luke Rierre who 


116 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


longed to become a maker of films but did not know 
how to go about it. 

Resting a minute, after the evening was well 
under way, Myra noticed, looking at her adoringly, 
a child about twelve years old. Curls of the radiant 
bronze auburn that artists love hung about her face 
and shadowed it. Her skin was very white, the 
usual accompaniment of such hair. Her eyes were 
large and blue and mournful. Her shoulders 
drooped. Her stomach thrust forward and up, and 
her knees lax, her figure might well be likened to 
the wave of a Hogarth curve. 

“What makes you so beautiful. Lady?” when she 
saw she had won Myra’s notice. “It ain’t your 
clothes, because there ain’t no trimming on ’em. 
Somehow, you look as if you was just going to fiy, 
you look so light on your feet. You look, you look, 
oh! what is it. Lady!” 

Myra scrutinized the little, crooked figure. 

“Come with me to the dressing room and I will 
show you one reason, in the mirror.” 

As in an ecstatic dream, the child followed. When 
they reached the dressing room which, owing to the 
seductions of the dining room, was empty, Myra put 
her arm gently about her and drew her close before 
a pier glass Mr. Manning had had placed in the room. 

“Look at yourself as if you were someone else. 
You are a very beautiful little girl, for your face is 
full of the spirit of kindliness and the desire to attain 
beauty. Your body is also beautiful. You can make 
it look so, if you want to.” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 117 


“Oh! I do,” said the child eagerly. 

Myra stood a moment in the grace of perfect 
balance, the little unbalanced figure drawn close to 
her own. In the glass, the child was feasting her 
eyes on the beauty of the poise. 

When Myra felt the child’s whole being was intent 
upon their reflections in the mirror, she dropped 
slowly into the unnatural curves maintained in the 
body of the child, until the two stood there, curve 
for curve, alike. She watched with interest the 
amazement pictured in those eyes of glorious blue, 
as her shape and appearance changed. When she 
let loose within her mind, a flood of evil thought, 
the child started back in terror at the distorted, 
almost gargoyle countenance of her adored one. 

“It is not you!” she shuddered, in terror. “Oh! 
it is not you!” 

“Yes, it is I, the same one you loved to be near 
and to look at a few minutes ago. Do you want to 
know what has made the change? Let us think, 
for a moment, that you and I are flowers growing 
toward the sun, breathing the sweet air, smiling 
as the passersby look at our beauty and are made 
happy by the sweetness we exhale. Feel that you 
may be to others just such sweetness as you smell 
and see in Franklin Park when your school teacher 
takes you there and the men are cutting grass and 
making hay.” 

Taking the little body into her pliant hands she 
drew it, with her own, gently into balance, at length 
attaining a natural poise. Shoulders, hips, and 


118 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


knees responded to her knowledge and her will. 
The structure of the child’s willing body came into 
position with her own until their centers of gravity 
were lightly and surely balanced over buoyant points 
of support. 

Myra took her arm away from the child, who 
followed every movement intently through the glass ; 
falling back with her into the original distorted posi- 
tion from which she had been drawn; coming with 
her slowly and naturally to the alert and balanced 
poise that was her right. Her chin daintily upward 
as her sense of smell reached out to inhale the odors 
of haymounds on distant hills she could not 
see, but knew were there. Her knees straightened; 
her feet pointed where her mind led. An expression 
of exaltation illumined her face at the transforma- 
tion ; her cheeks flushed with enthusiasm ; her 
mournful, drooping eyes looked out into her world, 
scintillant with delight; her curls, tossed back 
through the uplifting of her head, formed an aureole 
instead of a shadow about her face. The trans- 
parent complexion was clarifled by the tonic of a 
joyous soul. She was beautiful. 

“Ain’t that great!” This after a full minute of 
silence, during which every detail of the process by 
which .this wonderful transformation had been 
achieved evidently passed in review before her mind. 
''Ain't that great!” 

“People say I recite fine, and I want to go on 'to 
the stage. A manager said my hair was all right 
and so was my face; but he had no time to And 


ON 3:'HE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 119 

the goddess in a corkscrew. What would he say 
that for? Why would he be so mean and let me go, 
and not tell me what he meant and help me?” 

“People have a great deal to do. It takes time 
and strength to help people, and often, when one 
would like to, one is too busy and tired. Then too 
it is very seldom that a child ‘catches on’ as you 
have done. Sometimes it takes months and even 
years to overcome the one habit of standing wrong. 
Some never conquer it. I have shown you what is 
called Balance. Balance is more than beauty of 
face in way of charm.” 

“Perhaps you will give me some clothes, and Mr. 
Manning will give me an education.” The wheedle 
in her tones made Myra cringe. 

“We will do neither,” she said, shortly. “Only 
what you do for yourself will be to your lasting 
good. As for education, there are the schools. Are 
you making good at school?” 

“Myra!” came the voice of Ted Dingley at the 
door, “Come on! I want to talk with you! Do you 
suppose,” in an undertone, “that I came here to 
waste time with this crew? No! I came to talk 
with you and to carry you away with me. You 
will come, won’t you!” 

“No, Ted, dear, I can’t! Oh! Teddy, I can’t! I 
can’t!” 

“That blatant, busted speculator over there has 
talked me nearly deaf telling me what he used to be ! 
What do I care! What counts is, what is he now! 
A busted success! A failure! That wreck in the 


120 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


comer, with the advertising proboscis, used to lead 
the race track. What if he did! He doesn’t now! 
That woman just rolling out of the dining room has 
been telling me what she’s descended from. What 
do I care ! If she hadn’t hung on to that rotten rope 
so long, she might have ascended on the sound rope 
of herself! I told her so and she replied that she 
wasn’t coming to Mr. Manning’s mixed crowds to 
be insulted; so I fancy I am doing more harm here 
than good. I’ve tried to avert the glances of several 
men in the direction of pretty girls; but have no 
protection against the glances of several girls 
directed toward me.” 

“Did you introduce the men and the girls?” 

“No, I never thought of it.” 

“That is one of the objects of — ” 

“Oh heavens, Myra, come out of this horror! 
Come, dear.” 

“Dear heart, I can not — oh! Ted!” 

“Signorina, behold Freda, who can sing!” 

It was Judith, filled with delight, dragging after 
her a woman with pale and tired face illumined with 
interest. Judith’s decollete bosom heaved stormily 
and her arms cleaved the air, while her hands, in 
passing, gripped convulsively at the region of her 
heart, then freed themselves to embrace her fellow 
singer. Hysterically, she dragged her to the piano, 
embraced Mrs. Harndon with fervor, led her to the 
piano, and placed before her music for a duet. 

The harmonies of the masters filled the room. 
Not wholly fresh, the voices; often, here and there. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 121 

were signs of wear; but the fervor, the love of sweet 
sounds and melting harmonies, the spirit of song, 
were felt by all. 

Then there came community singing in which a 
goodly number joined. There was an attempt at 
caterwauling on the part of one of the gang who 
was promptly quashed by Willy. Then Willy per- 
formed some juggling with marbles in a space 
cleared especially for him; juggling that was really 
creditable, seeing Willy was just Willy and not a 
Japanese juggler. 

Mr. Manning himself saw the preceptress home, 
tired but exalted past the understanding of those 
who have not been debarred from their kind, and 
restored thereto, without patronage from those who 
have been equals. 

The Once Richest Man in the City told the Author- 
ess that his way lay in the direction of her home and 
requested the pleasure of escorting her to her door. 
Indeed, they found themselves to be in the same 
building and felt sure that evenings spent together 
would prove of mutual pleasure. 

Judith planned with Freda for rehearsals in duets. 
She was to move at once into the neighborhood and 
take possession of the fruit store. Mrs. Harndon 
would play for them often, and Mr. Manning was 
glad to have them use the piano and the suite for 
practice. Judith asked Willy if he would help her 
keep the shop clean and run errands. This he was 
very glad to do. 


122 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


As Myra looked about at the departing guests she 
saw the child, Maude, with the aureole of auburn 
hair, still maintaining, without tension, but with a 
buoyant poise, the bearing of the goddess of 
Balance. As, with her mother, Ted, and Mart, she 
stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the Hamdon 
apartment, she was saluted by Willy’s father who 
grasped her hand with his horny, shovel-roughened 
one, and said, “Shure, m’am, my Willy is a changed 
b’y since you said to him, says you, ‘Mr. Smith, will 
you pass the cake.* ** 


CHAPTER XVI 


^ ^''"T^HERE is a frightfully disagreeable odor 
about this kitchen sink. It menaces the 
health of the whole house,” said Myra one morning 
some months later. “That plumber comes and goes, 
but the odor flows on. I will unstop the trap myself.” 

“Can you put it together again?” asked Mrs. 
Hamdon. 

“Why did I take the course in the automobile 
shops! That experience is one of the social acqui- 
sitions possessing value on both sides of the bridge.” 

“How long ago it seems since you and your set 
pulled apart automobiles for the sheer pleasure of 
putting them together again, and prepared for ser- 
vice abroad.” 

“And how well the knowledge ministers to service 
at home! Now for the plumbing.” 

Pliers and wrench, screwdriver and putty forth- 
coming, Myra set to work, while Mrs. Harndon went 
shopping. 

Myra had the trap unscrewed, with all the appear- 
ance of undertaking an extensive piece of plumbing, 
when the bell summoned her, overalls and cap, to 
the hall tube. Unlatching the catch to the lower, 
outer door, she awaited the caller at the head of 
the stairs, wholly forgetful of her masculine garb 
and unconscious of the impelling charm of her 
superb figure. Poised, perfect in development, pro- 

123 


124 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


portions, balance, she waited, her natural allure- 
ment enhanced by her exertions. Hor eyes were 
dancing and scintillant with the alertness and joy 
that come through thorough interest and perfect 
health. Bronze waves of hair of the shade that 
holds out to the mysterious mind of man strange, 
physical fascination peeped from the edges of the 
cap and formed a frame for her face — a face of 
irresistible attractiveness, glowing with vitality and 
inspiration. 

Into the man’s eyes leaped a smouldering flame, 
as he advanced to the head of the stairs. 

The intimate acquaintance of a beautiful girl with 
the high lights of society as portrayed by “smart 
sets’’ had acquainted her, at least by observation, 
and inevitably somewhat by contact, with certain 
traits of human nature. On one side of the bridge, 
in Country Clubs and in kindred places, on the other 
side they appear likewise in the dives. Myra dis- 
tinguished a menace in the general demeanor of the 
man and in the gleam in his eyes. Had he not at 
once displayed an official badge, she would have shut 
the door against him. As it was, she waited 
haughtily for him to speak. She did not know- that 
this assumption of hauteur was the flnal touch to a 
bewitchingly entrancing picture. She did not realize 
her charm or know she was so evidently different 
from her surroundings, in what such a man would 
call “touch and go,” that he might readily leap to 
wrong conclusions upon finding her in that locality. 
Manning didn’t allow birds in his houses, he knew; 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 125 


but trust them; they would creep in anywhere, and 
this one certainly was a bird! 

“So the old lemon had to get out, even if Manning 
did fire me for pushing her rent,” was his greeting 
as he neared the landing. “Don’t tell me about these 
pious helpers of mankind. Ten to one, he wanted 
her out so as t;o get you in but didn’t want me to 
know it! I hear the kid is collecting. Nice fool, 
the old man, to send him here to collect. He will 
put away mudh more here with you, than he will 
ever take to the banks in rents!” 

“Your business, sir? I see you have a badge.” 
Myra’s manner was distant and dignified enough to 
warn any man ; but her beauty and the deliciousness 
of her attempt to hold him aloof made him draw 
nearer. 

Myra felt very pale; but held her position cour- 
ageously. 

“I used to be Manning’s collector but I have gone 
back to my old business of city plumbing inspector. 
I want to see the plumbing. It was bad enough 
when I was on here. I never did anything to better 
it. I thought, since the old dame lost me my job. 
I’d step in and see who’s took her fiat. Oh! you 
are having it fixed, aren’t you!” This, as the un- 
willing Myra ushered him into the kitchen. “Who 
is doing your work?” 

“I am.” 

“A real plumber, eh? Doing a real plumber’s 
work! I do declare! Got a license?” 

“No,” retorted Myra, “I have something more 


126 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 

than a license. I have a will to do my work well and 
not take money for doing nothing.” 

“Getting pay for it! I do declare!” 

There was a sinister gleam in the man’s eye that 
made her more uneasy than before. Beneath the 
physical menace of the moment, something even 
more insidious had entered his manner. There was 
an additional leap of flame into those yellow eyes 
as if two chemicals were combining to form dyna- 
mite. Over and through the gleam of passion, 
lancing its way through the pupil and .the iris till 
the whole eye was suffused with its horror, was a 
red Are of revenge; whether petty or terrible, still 
it was revenge. 

“I guess you ain’t what I thought you. I took 
you to be fly, at first.” 

His manner became ingratiating and Myra liked 
it less than the outspoken, blatant manner of his 
first advance. “You are the old woman’s daughter, 
ain’t you! She told me you was coming home, at 
the time she couldn’t pay the rent. Silly! A girl 
like you should never worry about rent!” 

Myra thought fast and hard. How had she treated 
Billy Danton when he tried to kiss her on the other 
side of the bridge! Dumped him out of the trap on 
to the putting green of the Country Club ! Her mind 
cleared. Is not humanity the same on both sides 
of the bridge? 

“As you are the inspector, I want to show you the 
condition of the back entry and the freight elevator.” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 127 


The man followed, craning his head in every 
direction. 

“You are doing a lot of work, aren’t you! All 
fixed up! What’s that over in the corner? Doing 
over chairs, I do declare! Doing it yourself?” 

“Pretty nearly all ourselves, my mother and 1.” 
Myra, too, was softening and the agent was begin- 
ning to feel very happy. His eyes sought hers with 
more assurance, though they could not fully meet 
her pure and truthful ones. There was something 
in the eyes of^girls like this one that sure got you. 
They came up like a brick wall before you; and he 
wasn’t going to stand for that. Doing work, herself, 
without a license. Well, there was more than one 
way to pay for being kicked out of a job and refused 
a pleasant, fiy little time with a pretty girl! 

“Some of the work, of course, we have to hire; 
but, really, very little.” 

“Quite a contractor!” There was a devilish oili- 
ness in his tones. 

“Yes,” pleasantly. She kept singing over and 
over within herself, 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is.” 

“See, this is the elevator. There must be some- 
thing wrong downstairs, the odor pours up so. 
Haven’t some of the other tenants in the house 
spoken about it?” 

“Mercy, no! They are used to smells; wouldn’t 
feel at home without them.” 

“Do you think the ropes are safe? Shouldn’t 


128 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


they be renewed? Would you mind looking at 
them?” A winning smile accompanied this request. 

The inspector entered the lift. As in a flash, Myra 
shut the door upon him and started the elevator 
on a swift and sure descent to the floor below. 

“You know where to find the pipes and how to let 
yourself out by the cellar door,” she called after 
him pleasantly, “I thank you for inspecting the 
plumbing and hope you will get it straightened out 
for us all. Goodbye.” 

She listened until, after some fumbling on the 
part of the caged man, the lower door crashed open. 
Then the outer one from the cellar to the street 
opened and was slammed to with a vicious clang. 

With a sigh of relief, Myra returned to her work 
upon the sink. 


CHAPTER XVII 


IV/TYRA said nothing to her mother of the fore* 
IVX going incident. Notwithstanding she realized, 
as never before, that her present position exposed 
her to insults from the base minded in high waisted 
coats; was she any safer among correct cut-a-ways 
enclothing the same development of mind on the 
other side of the bridge? She was feeling more 
self respecting and protected than for a long time. 
The fact that she saw a way to an honest living 
was great reinforcement. What Ted Dingley said 
about the crazy quilts had fitted in at first, far too 
well with her own ideas. She had felt, with her 
mother, that the Mannings were offering them 
charity, hoping they would not be discovered. After 
the first reception to the tenants she was convinced 
this was not the case. Mr. Manning had offered 
Mrs. Harndon a fixed salary for playing two evenings 
a week and for superintending the development of 
his plans with the suite, which was to become 
reception and amusement rooms for the tenants. 
Here girls could receive callers; the three small 
rooms were fitted up for that purpose, like cosy 
living rooms; the kitchen was for candy-pulling 
parties and for games; the dining-room was fitted 
as a library and stocked with books from the shelves 
of Mr. Manning’s “big house.” Singers could sing, 
readers could read, chatterers could chat. Mart had 

129 


130 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


come to Myra, too, with another proposition from 
his father: that she receive a salary for visiting the 
tenants, not as settlement worker or nurse ; not even 
as advisor, but as friend. In this way she was to 
find out the “Who’s Who” in the district as surely 
as she had always done on the other side of the 
bridge. She could sort home lovers from nomads; 
thinkers from proletarians; the tired from the lazy; 
the fine from the crude. She was gaining a modest 
fame in her trade of making settings for homes. 
Lodging house keepers in the vicinity had solicited 
her services; so had a small hotel nearby. One 
showed the results with pride to another, who en- 
gaged like work and with equal pleasure showed 
it to a friend. So life was unfolding its vista to 
Myra as. she carved her way through the darkness 
before her with the keen-cut cleft of doing her best 
with every day. 

She came from a round of visits one afternoon, 
threw her hat on the table, and dropped to the couch 
she and her mother had made so successfully; rest- 
ing on her elbow, while she examined with pride 
the skilful upholstering. 

“I was nearly mobbed by a mental lynching party, 
this afternoon,” she laughed. “Lines are drawn 
here as rigidly as on the other side of the bridge 
and woe to him who fails to recognize it. I was 
calling on Willy’s mother and alluded to this part 
of the city as the slums. Oh ! but she jumped on me ! 
It seems there is as great a distinction between the 
real slums and here, as between here and ‘over there’ 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 131 


on the Avenue and the ‘sunny side that holds the 
favored few’ of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ select 
snobbery. It raises me in my own estimation to 
learn that I no longer am among the lost in the 
social scale ; but among the climbers of the best sort. 
It is giving me poise!” 

“Poise is not an ultimate,” mused Mrs. Harndon. 

“Why, so it isn’t!” Myra sat upright. “Many 
think so, though, don’t they!” 

“Yes; but in reality, it is a moral and mental 
holding of gathered forces, ready to use.” 

“The way many apply the word, it is a joy-killer 
and a drug to enthusiasm.” 

“Poise and Self Control are generals leading En- 
thusiasm and Passion into victorious action.” 

“Passion, Mamsee?” 

“Yes, Passion. Many think of the word as de- 
based and debasing. Who lives, really lives, Myra, 
without Passion? Passion is divine: the passion for 
purity, the passion for love.” 

“With Poise and Self Control for generals! 
Mamsee, you are a dear! I have been trying to 
make myself numb. I know another general. You 
obey his orders every day, You Blessed!” 

“What is his name?” 

“Common Sense — really most ungeneral” ; not re- 
sisting her liking to play on words. “I don’t know 
a title big enough for him! He is even bigger than 
Self Control, isn’t he!” 

“He possesses more discernment and discretion 
and perhaps less of the disastrous quality of re- 


132 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


pression,” laughed Mrs. Harndon, following Myra’s 
metaphors. 

“Speaking of poise, I met Maude on the street. 
She has never lost her bearing of a goddess since 
the night of our first reception. It is remarkable. 
She has gone on and on in her studies at school, 
too. Because of this. Mart is giving her a special 
course of literary interpretation with the preceptress. 
I am told she was stupid and inattentive before, 
always trying to get something for nothing.” 

“The preceptress will unclose realms of wonders 
to the child. Her discernment of the interior mean- 
ings of the great writers is remarkable. She was 
far in advance of the times. Her methods of teach- 
ing were not understood. They are in alignment 
with what the wise ones are trying to give to the 
world today. Even now, the wise ones are having 
a difficult time making the blind see and the deaf 
hear.” Mrs. Harndon was fitting a cushion to a 
wicker chair with dainty precision. “Those 
Mannings are rather remarkable, Myra. Through 
them we are developing and fitting into a colony 
more original than any I ever met on the other side. 
It interests me to watch them dovetail the needs 
of one into the necessities of another. How keenly 
they diagnose the difference between vice as vice, 
and vice as energy gone astray.” 

“They are skilful in promoting reciprocity of 
service instead of onesided giving and receiving. 
When I first met Maude, she had the professional 
whine, the itching palm, the mania of being given 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 133 


to. She is not given these lessons from the precep- 
tress. Every time she has a lesson, she tells what 
she learns to some shut-in, grown-up or child. She 
is a dear little raconteur and finds the practice 
valuable in learning to grip an audience. If she does 
not tell these stories with all her heart interest alive, 
the children will not listen. Mart says he and his 
father are giving the preceptress ‘back pay,’ when 
I challenge him for overstepping his own rules and 
ideas on giving.” 

‘‘Yes, it is to her a belated reciprocity,” mused 
Mrs. Hamdon. “Dear little preceptress! — Did you 
see Judith?” 

“I did. She is so happy in her new shop. Mart 
— talk of angels — ” for the doorbell was calling the 
color to her face even as herself to the door. The 
color faded as she saw ascending the steps, not 
Mart, but Ted Dingley. 

“I have it all to go over again,” she sighed. “Poor 
Ted ! I wonder why I can’t do what he wants me to ! 
I might as well! What is the difference! He is a 
dear boy! I wonder what makes people so often 
perverse to their best good.” 

“You don’t look glad to see me, Myra! Please 
be giad! What is the use of trying to get away from 
me! lam going to have you, Myra!” 

“No, Ted. Come in and be a nice brother. I need 
you badly.’' 

“Brother be — ! Don’t enrage me! I want you 
for a wife, Myra— a wife, do you hear! No, I won’t 
go in, now that I have you here by yourself. You 


134 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


never let me see you alone. I wouldn’t have plunged 
into this but you look so adorable, but, heart of my 
heart, so forbidding. Myra, why won’t you say yes, 
and let me take you out of this horror. They are 
nauseating, these people! They remind me of the 
refuse of the garbage cans, these inhabitants of the 
slums!” 

“Wait, Ted! I find we are not in the slums, and 
one has to be most careful not to insult the inhab- 
itants of this section by so designating them. As 
to denizens of the garbage can! Ted, there isn’t a 
stone’s throw between the Avenue and here. Just 
the little ticker in the broker’s office; the slip of a 
pen that signs the name of a firm for personal 
purposes; the withdrawing of the working power 
of an arm; the life blood from the heart of a father! 
Oh! The leap is less than a stone’s throw, Ted!” 

“Anyway, Myra, it is all horrible! I want you out 
of it, and I want you! I am a good sort of fellow, 
Myra. Why won’t you marry me?” 

“Dear Heart, I can not understand the ways of a 
maid with a man any more than the writer of the 
Proverbs. I just can’t love you in the right way!” 

“What is the odds! I love you! What is the 
matter with me, Myra? Say yes, dear!” 

“Won’t Mr. Dingley come in?” Mrs. Hamdon was 
speaking. “I heard your voice, Ted. I am glad to 
see you. Come in.” 

“I can’t, Mrs. Hamdon. I can’t bear to see Myra 
making crazy quilts with rags. Excuse me, Mrs. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 135 

Harndon, but Fm distracted. You know what I 
want! Won’t you urge Myra to marry me!” 

“Ted, it would make me happy to have you for a 
son, and happier than I like to tell you, to have Myra 
your wife with the comforts you can give her; but 
it is her heart, Ted. I can do nothing!” 

“I shan’t give up, Mrs. Harndon. I won’t go in. 
I want you, Myra, and I shan’t give you up until I — ” 
He plunged out at the door and down the stairs. 

“Why can’t I like Ted, Mother, the way he wants 
me to!” sighed Myra, as she returned to the dining 
room. “I wish I were not perverse. Somehow, I 
don’t like the attitude he assumes toward those in 
the clutches of adverse circumstance. I’m no 
humanitarian, or was not until I was placed in the 
clutch of circumstance and taught a few truths 
about sets and charity and poverty and riches, and 
given teachers like Mr. Manning and Mart. I can’t 
love Ted and I don’t know why; but I would not like 
to live with a man of so little vision. Life in all the 
phases he is not accustomed to is only a ‘yellow 
primrose’ to him; worse, refuse for the garbage can! 
Oh! Ted. Some of these were the rich such as you 
know and think you understand. When I see how 
little of the world’s gifts is held together under the 
land slides of circumstance, I wonder if ‘refuse for 
the garbage can’ is not as apparent on the Avenue 
as here — ” 

This time, the color came to her cheeks, not in 
vain ; for the ring at the door heralded Mart and his 


136 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


father. They came, they said, to plan a program 
for the next social evening. 

“I had a great talk with the little journalist. Miss 
Chester, today,*’ said Mart. “I went to collect the 
rent and found her really with roses in her cheeks, 
talking with Mr. Queen, the once richest man in the 
city, you know. I mentioned that I had to get up 
some advertising matter and wanted it original. Mr. 
Queen suggested that Miss Chester might write it. 
He called my attention to the charm of her style 
and said that with coaching she could catch on to 
present day methods of writing ads in story or con- 
versational form. He would assist her, if she would 
permit; he used to be an adept at putting matter 
before the public, and so on. I thought it a jolly 
idea and left them eager as kids to begin.” 

“Mart, send up one of our typewriting machines 
to Miss Chester. There is a typist in the suite below 
her laid up with neuritis of the arm. I shall suggest 
that he give Miss Chester some points on the use 
of the machine,” said Mr. Manning. 

“Are you going to send that big nerve specialist 
to him. Father?” said Mart. 

“I did speak of doing so, didn’t I! I have thought 
of a better plan.” 

“What is it?” 

“Why, relieve his mind of the thought that he 
must use those arms or starve. I believe that 
horrible fear sends the blood racing to the congested 
parts! Agonizing pictures of dependence, anger 
against those members that have failed him in the 


'on the other side of THE BRIDGE 137 

battle of bread, add to his torture and increase his 
disability.’* 

Mrs. Harndon shivered. She looked very sad. 

“Tell him at once, Mart, that he is to have a place 
in our offices to meet and ward off visitors for me. 

I positively must have a better protector than Billy 
Bynes and Billy will do just as well elsewhere.” 

“Fll see him tonight; this very minute. I’ll be 
back, Mrs. Hamdon, in a few moments.” 

“Here, Mart! Tell him that, first, I want him to 
go to the Adirondacks to look over some land for 
me. Tell him to make ready to be gone a month. ^ 
Let him look in tomorrow morning and be off as 
soon as possible. There’ll be a lot of tramping under 
the pines,” he called after the departing Mart. 

Mart turned back as he reached the door and 
looked at his father tenderly. 

“Dad, how many people do you suppose you fool!” 

“Nonsense, boy, I am fooling nobody nor am I 
attempting to. It is commonsense to go to the 
storehouse for supplies; to the mind for causes, 
that’s all. Show me what you Home Makers have 
been doing,” as Mart ran down the stairs. “I 
thought I should never again be vitally interested 
in homes after my wife — ” he halted; then con- 
tinued, “The right woman in a man’s life makes all 
the difference between existing and living.” 

He bent ta examine the work Mrs. Harndon was 
holding in her hands; she and Myra had not stilled 
their busy fingers upon the advent of their callers. 


138 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


In a few minutes, Mart returned and went over to 
where Myra was sitting. 

“What is your ideal of a room?” He leaned dis- 
creetly over her shoulder, watching the diagram of 
a room emerge from her mind on to paper through 
the medium of her drawing pencil. 

“A room with six large windows and a view 
Of hill and forest; books, a few; 

Soft lights concealed in sconces, 

Love and — you! 

I wrote that long ago,” she hastened to add, the 
color mounting to her cheeks as she stumbled over 
the last word. She was angry and confused that 
her self possession had not carried her safely over 
the personal pronoun. She would have left the line 
incomplete; but any rhymster could guess at the 
last word, even if unspoken, and as for changing it, 
there was no other to fit the case. It made her 
angry to realize that the fact there was no other 
word for rhyming was not her only reason for failing 
to make substitution. 

“That is a very beautiful concept,” then, softly, 
“I wish the you, meant meT 

Myra fiushed rosy red. She bent more closely 
over her work. 

“It is a you of my dreams,” she mumbled. 

“I have a you in my dreams and in reality, as well. 
You are my you, and I am your you. Your eyes 
were a lodestar to my heart the first time I looked 
into them.” 

“It is not seemly, Mr. Manning,” Myra spoke very 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 139 


softly. “It may not be, you very well know. Indeed, 
I am not sure that your father and you should come 
here at all. Mother was careful as to conventions in 
her own sphere ; she is not seeming to realize, in the 
pleasure of your coming, you and your father, that 
things are different with us from what they used to 
be. To her, it is the same as if you were meeting us 
as we have always been. The world will see 
differently.” 

“We are meeting now, as you have always been,” 
said Mart hotly. 

“I know the world. Mart,” sadly, “I know!” 

“Then you know not after the manner of your 
very self nor of my self! Myra! You are above 
the world!” 

“But still in it and very much at its mercy. No, 
it must not — it is different!” 

She turned resolutely from Mart and went to the 
table where her mother was showing Mr. Manning 
a little ]jox of trinkets. She had opened it in order 
to find the sketch of a loggia in one of her former 
homes. She wished to ask his advice about treating 
one of the rooms in the new apartment house after 
the same fashion. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


^ ^'’X^HIS is a sacred little memento,” Mrs. 

Harndon was saying, when Myra reached 
her side. Her mother was holding in her hand a 
trinket, a pin made, seemingly, of an old-time 
ear-ring. 

“It belonged to a dear friend. I did her a service 
long ago, and she told me, as she put this little gift 
into my hand, that if she could ever do me a like 
one in return its mate should accompany it. She 
has passed out of my life; never from my heart. 
I wish I knew if she were alive. I love her dearly.” 

Myra looked closely at the pin. She had seen it 
often in childhood and recalled it now. Why, then, 
did it appeal to her as connected with her life of 
recent date? It seemed very familiar, very fresh in 
her memory. Surely she had handled it recently. 
Quick as a flash she reached for her hand-bag. 
From its depths she drew a tiny parcel wrapped in 
tissue paper. It was the fac simile of the little 
trinket her mother Was placing meditatively in its 
resting place ; the pin the never-to-be-forgotten 
benefactor had dropped on the floor of the car on 
that never-to-be-forgotten day. Sometime ago, she 
had recovered it, unclaimed, from the bureau of 
missing articles at the station, and forgotten all 
about it. 

She stood silent, trinket in hand. Was she facing 
140 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 141 


a coincidence, a happening only? Had there been 
some faint resemblance to the mother of long ago 
in the girl who poured forth her plaint in the rumb- 
ling train, that had led the onlooker, without realiz- 
ing why, to stretch forth a hand? Had the mother’s 
need transfused itself through the daughter’s per- 
sonality, and won for her the attention of a soul 
ready and desirous to assist? Had she, Myra, 
through constant communion with the Infinite in 
those hours of need, been vouchsafed an answer, in 
that before she finished asking she surely had 
received ! 

She placed the trinket in her mother’s hand. 

“This trinket is not yours. Mother; that, you have 
put away in the chamber of memories; this was 
dropped on the car floor by the one who relieved 
our urgent need. The lettering is the same on both 
the pins. Was it consciously or unconsciously that 
your friend redeemed her pledge to you?” 


CHAPTER XIX 


A FURIOUS pushing of the button at the street 
door brought to a sudden close the visit to the 
chamber of memories. Myra hastened to the hall. 

The lower door within the main vestibule was 
burst excitedly open, and, dashing up the stairs, 
almost tumbling over himself in his haste, came 
Willy. 

“Gosh, Miss Myra!” he panted, “Judith and the 
Austrian Baroness’s got into a row, an’ they’s 
flghtin’; an’ ’nen the Baron, he come in, an’ his 
girl that shows the children how to play at the 
settlement. She’s begun ter throw Judith’s fruit 
out’n the street; an’ all the tuffs is hootin’ an’ yellin’ 
an’ gettin’ all Judith’s good stuff; an’ I thinks it’s 
a sin fer three ter hit out agin one; jes’ like their 
blood!” 

Before Willy had finished pouring out this torrent 
of information, Mr. Manning and Mart were down 
the stairs and on the street, running towards the 
new little shop where Judith had queened it for 
more than a season. Myra and her mother followed. 
Willy dallied a moment, but made a close third to 
the party. They reached the field of battle practi- 
cally together. 

Willy’s description was none too graphic. Baskets 
of fruit were strewn on the pavement, and the crowd 
that had gathered alternately feasted themselves on 

142 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 143 


the debris and dodged the flying baskets. Danger- 
ous amunition in the shape of bottles of soft drinks 
were in the hands of the Baron and his daughter 
when Willy’s reinforcements arrived. 

In vain Mr. Manning expostulated. Judith’s 
brawny arms were not to be stayed by the voice of 
any man. No policeman was in sight and no one 
called any; the fun was too exciting. Mart tried to 
reach the contestants, but they were well officered 
by the Baron and his daughter. They had fastened 
the doors, barricaded the window; and whoever 
approached, did so at the peril of wounds from the 
glass bottles they were holding. 

Mrs. Harndon ran to the nearest telephone for 
police protection. Mart and Mr. Manning braved 
the missiles and put sturdy shoulders to the door; 
but the lock was strong, the frame stalwart. 
Steadily, behind the broken glass of the window 
where they might otherwise have entered, the guard 
within were on the alert with their dangerous 
barrage. There seemed nothing to do until the stock 
of bottled drinks was exhausted. 

Suddenly there was a general gasp, then a stam- 
pede of the spectators. Had a tidal wave broken 
loose from the ocean upon the city street? Had 
the earth turned upside down and poured the con- 
tents of the seas upon them? Mart and Mr. 
Manning leaped aside, as, behind them, his drenched 
face dripping with water and shining with the joy 
of battle, appeared Willy with a hose, directing vol- 
umes of water upon the bottle throwers. The city 


144 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


hydrant being too unwieldy, his plan would have 
failed, had he not recalled the attachment Mr. 
Manning had placed in the lower entry of his father’s 
flat, next to Judith’s shop, that Willy might keep the 
entries and stairways clean. 

Willie directed a fusilade of water full strength 
from the hose upon the advance guard of flghters. 
Dazed and blinded, they separated. This gave Willy 
clear approach to the central figures of the fray. 
With well-directed torrents he played upon the 
Baroness, until she relinquished her hold upon her 
doughty foe. Still Judith struggled on, distracted, 
bestowing misdirected thumps and pounds upon her 
assailant until both were held in restaint by Mart 
and Mr. Manning. 

At this moment a policeman appeared. He lis- 
tened to the explanation of the difficulty from the 
Baron. The Mannings and the Hamdons were 
astounded, at the purity of the English in which'these 
aristocrats of another nation poured forth their tale. 
The revolting disclosure of high-breeding prostituted 
by low habit of mind, was appalling. The incon- 
gruity puzzled the policeman. He eyed the assail- 
ants quizzically. Finally he expressed himself: “Is 
it that ye have come over from the Avenue to have 
a game with human golf balls!” 

Their story disclosed the fact that the Baron had 
come to this country before the late War. He had 
lost his fortune through speculation, and been com- 
pelled to renounce his estates in favor of the next 
of kin. For very shame, and with courage gone. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 145 


he had hidden in America. Until now he had done 
so successfully, existing rather than living, with 
almost no money and no friends; held in a vise by 
the sort of pride that crushes and kills; lost to all 
sense of the pride that uplifts and restores. He had 
become a presser for a tailor. His wife had sat idly, 
day after day, in the doorway of their meagre 
quarters. Only when hunger pressed too hard or 
the landlord became too insistent, did she move 
from her seat in the doorway, to sew on buttons. 
The slender, court beauty, graceful and sylph-like, 
had no need to conceal herself longer from old-time 
friends. Her accumulation of sordid flesh and loss 
of all sense of dignity and proportion within herself, 
were a cloak of concealment most effective. The 
daughter, a beautiful girl of sixteen, had been dis- 
covered by the settlement near by, but some blocks 
from the Manning property. So difficult of treat- 
ment was the combination in her, of arrogance and 
incompetence: a combination not strange, but the 
result, each quality of the other, that the only occu- 
pation the settlement could And for her and keep 
the peace, was teaching children how to play. In 
this she excelled. The spirit of real, joyous childlike 
play and her love for children as children, seemed 
in her the only qualities alert enough to respond to 
influence. These were being used as a life line for 
her possible elevation. 

The unfeigned terror of the Baroness at thought 
of the police patrol wagon was so great Mr. Manning 
was touched. The four were taken to police head- 


146 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


quarters, the Mannings accompanying them. It was 
Judith’s taunts over an enemy that had precipitated 
the onslaught, and Judith’s vocabulary, when in 
working order, was as tinder to tow. Though the 
Baroness struck the first blow with her fists, it was 
discovered that Judith’s tongue-lashing was the first 
real stroke in the battle, when the Baroness and 
family, having spurned the quality of some fruit 
Judith had for sale, were recipients of a well-voiced 
and fully expressed avowal of what she, the 
Neapolitan, thought of the Austrian nation, individ- 
ually and as a whole. 

The probate officer and the Mannings talked long 
and earnestly. He was much inclined to remand 
them to jail to wait for the holding of the court in 
the morning, but the Mannings pleaded with him. 
The Baron and Baroness and their insolent beauty of 
a daughter watched the faces of the officer. Terror 
grew within them as they felt, stalking like a spectre 
at their side, the greatest indignity and horror that 
had yet come into their storm tossed lives, 
imprisonment. 

“They speak excellent English, Officer. There is 
more need of them at the Immigration Bureau and 
Travellers’ Aid helping their countrymen to learn 
our tongue, than as guests of the state.” 

“Good idea!” said the Officer. “Do you mind 
taking them down to the office of the League and 
placing them?” 

“The stand has been moved recently, you know. 
It is not in the station where it used to be.” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 147 


“No, it is in the city. If they refuse to do this, 
the alternative must be imprisonment. Bottle 
throwing is a dangerous pastime and should not be 
met with a mere fine. Now, about the damage to 
the shop? They shall restore it to condition. The 
Neapolitan shall swallow her losses to pay her for 
her brain-storm.” 

“I am sorry for the high-borns who fall,” said Mr. 
Manning. 

“So am I,” returned the officer. “It’s much harder 
on them than on the others, and they seem to fall 
lower too, when they start.” 

“To the low-born, every step toward efficiency is 
ascent. To those fallen from high estate, every step 
of endeavor seems to them a fall. That tends to 
lack of courage.” 

“Then, too, the peasant has been taught through 
generations to look out for himself in a measure; to 
the aristocrat, the needs and luxuries have come to 
him without personal effort, as the air he breathes.” 

“Yes; he has to put new forces into play; the 
peasant has only to extend the energies already in 
action.” 

The Chief turned to the three, quivering before 
his decision. 

“You are to put this woman’s shop in perfect 
order; then you are to go with Mr. Manning and 
teach your countrymen to speak the English lang- 
uage; or else it will be the jail.” 


148 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 

The Baroness showed signs of hysteria at both 
propositions. 

“Quick!” demanded the probate officer, brusquely, 
“Is it in or out?” 

“Out!” gasped the Baroness; and she wept salt 
tears of anguish and humiliation. 


CHAPTER XX 


T^ISIONS of the plumbing inspector, whose visit 
^ Myra had not mentioned to her mother, and 
the tragedy of the Baron and the Baroness, fallen 
from worldly estate, kept Myra awake nearly all 
night. Impelling shudder after shudder through her 
sensitive being, loomed policemen and prisons. 

“It is all there on the other side of the bridge; 
but it is more veiled. I am too near the unveiled 
horrors in these near-by slums. Ted Dingley could * 
take me out! I will not be so taken ! Oh! the jail — “ 
She fell asleep and morning found her depressed 
and weary. 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is” 

she forced herself to hum while dressing, “I know 
that! Why should I be afraid!’' 

Breakfast over, she left the house to make some 
purchases. She was met by Willy, who mounted 
guard on the curbstone whenever it was possible, in 
hope of gaining a glimpse, perhaps even a word, 
from his divinity. Together they walked toward the 
corner where Judith’s shop was situated. 

“Gee! Didn’t we have the fun last night! You’d 
orter see the Baron an’ Baroness, sweepin’ out 
bottles an’ mashed fruit, this momin’. She looks 
dreadful disgusted! W’at’s the reason she looked 
so pleased w’en they was pitchin’ things out an’ 
so awful mad now she’s pitchin’ of ’em back?” 

149 


150 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


“Human nature, Willy,” Myra returned absently. 
The horrible oppression of the preceding night 
weighed heavily upon her still; and policemen 
seemed to dance about her in a most distracting 
fashion. 

“W’at’s human nature?” persisted Willy, running 
on ahead and peering up into her face, looking more 
like a goat on hindlegs than anything Myra had ever 
seen short of the actual creature. “W’at’s human 
nature?” as Myra’s answer was not forthcoming on 
the instant. 

“It is something inside men and women that 
shows out like an angel one minute, and like a 
beast the next; and one never knows which is going 
to be seen, or when.” 

“Gee!” Willy was awestruck. “Did I get it last 
night with the hose?” 

“You sure did!” Myra was becoming colloquial 
in her conversations with Willy. “You sure did.” 

“Have I got human nature?” 

“Yes. All of us have.” 

“Is mine an angel or a beast?” 

“We all have both, so of course you have both.” 

“Is kuman nature good looking?” 

“You can make it so by letting the angel show 
more than the beast.” 

“Oh! Is it something like a circus animal, kept in 
a pen?” 

“Yes, in the pen of the body. You have a good 
deal of say-so as to which sticks its head out.” 

“Which is the best looking?” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 151 


“The angel.” 

“Which passes cake best at the receptions Mr- 
Manning gives?” 

“The angel.” 

“Which threw water on the baroness, last night?” 

“The angel.” 

“Which threw water on Mr. Manning that night 
of the first party?” 

“The beast.” 

“That gets me! Doin’ the same thing, both of 
’em?” 

“Yes; that is the trouble. Both do the same thing 
and perhaps in the same way; but somehow the 
results are different.” 

“How’s that?” 

“To take your own illustration; in one case you 
put to discomfort two kind men who were trying to 
make us happy; in the other, you put an end to a 
great deal of damage in a very efficient manner.” 

“What’s efficient?” 

Myra realized she must watch her speech. If she 
did not wish to become a dictionary for the enlight- 
enment of Willy’s waking mind, she must simplify 
her explanations. 

“Being efficient, Willy, means tackling a job and 
doing it well in as short a time as you possibly can.” 

“Gee! You say it makes you good lookin’! Is 
that why you is such a peach? But,” with a sudden 
puzzled wrinkle coming between his brows and a 
drawing up of the lower lids toward his eyes, “there’s 
that daughter of the Baroness. She’s a beaut; but 


152 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


I guess she lets the beast out of her pretty often. 
How’s that?” 

“She must have a good angel inside of her that 
keeps the angel look in her face, because, even if she 
is good looking, unless the angel is there somewhere, 
the face always has in it, if you care to look for it, 
the look of the beast.” 

“I’d like to look like an angel,” mused Willy, “a 
big man angel, like St. Michael mashin’ some bloke’s 
head, w’at I seen in the Art Museum w’en the 
teacher took us there, last week.” 

“Guido Reni’s ‘Saint Michael slaying the dragon’ ? ” 

“Yep. He had him mashed well under his feet. 
The bloke sure didn’t enjoy it. I’m goin’ to be Angel 
Michael round here an’ mash the heads of all the 
blokes I kin get hold of.” 

“Oh!” thought Myra in dismay, “I am trying to 
waken the angel and succeeding only in rousing the 
beast. I’d better change the subject ” 

“Why did you think of the hose last night?” 

“Saw it in the movies. The man cleared out a 
saloon fight. Gee ! It was great. I just remembered 
as I started on behind you that Mr. Manning had 
put the hose in our entry. We are next door, an’ 
the hose was long. Look at the little lady. Miss 
Chester, walkin’ with Mr. Queen. She’s smilin’ at 
you.” 

“Oh, the little journalist! How do you do. Miss 
Chester; Mr. Queen.” 

“I want to tell you something very pleasant,” said 
Miss Chester, brightly. “What do you think! Mr. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 153 


Queen suggested last night that I write up Judith's 
‘war of the nations' with all its local color, for the 
press; he said he would see it placed. I wrote it up 
at once and he took it to the World, and they paid 
me for it! Isn't that very good of Mr. Queen!" 

"I have been more than repaid, I assure you. Miss 
Harndon. I tell Miss Chester she has finer oppor- 
tunity than ever in her life for gleaning material 
for journalism and stories. Her local color is at 
hand, and both comedy and tragedy lurk at her 
very door- I too have something pleasant and per- 
sonal to tell you. Miss Harndon, a quick reward for 
what Miss Chester is pleased to call my kindness." 

“I am much interested." Myra looked at the 
happy face of the man and the glowing countenance 
of the woman, and their enthusiasm girded her as 
with a blessing. 

"I had left the newspaper office after placing Miss 
Chester's sketch with the editor who used to know 
me, years ago, and was walking down the street 
I had not been on for years, when whom should I 
meet, face to face, but an old friend. He grasped 
me by the shoulders and fairly hugged me, there 
and then. He is now at the head of one of the 
biggest banking houses in the world." 

“Tell Miss Harndon the rest," said Miss Chester 
as Mr. Queen faltered in his tale, feeling himself 
Intruding personalities. “If you don't, I shall; it is 
so very lovely. It seems that when this man was a 
struggling young business man Mr. Queen assisted 


154 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


him financially. ' Now, Mr. Queen, you tell Miss 
Harndon the rest.” 

“He has been looking for me for years, but was 
unable to find me. I had hidden well on the other 
side of the bridge, as you say. He told me that with 
the exception of myself he had, to his great joy, 
repaid everyone who helped him through those 
troublous times; but to his regret could not trace 
me and believed me dead. He insisted on giving 
me a check then and there. A check for the amount 
I had advanced him and interest, too ! Interest, Miss 
Harndon, on a very substantial sum! A bagatelle 
to me, salvation to him, then! It is a bagatelle to 
him and salvation to me, now!” 

“How very splendid.” Myra’s lovely face grew 
more beautiful as she listened. 

“He has invited me to dine with him this evening, 
at his club; my club. Miss Harndon. Excuse my 
detaining you on the street to tell you this; but 
we are very happy this morning. Miss Chester and I ; 
very happy!” 

They separated at the fruit shop; Miss Chester 
to go to her pencil and writing pad with the wine of 
the new age stirring into action the training and 
experience of the past; Mr. Queen, to seek a bank 
where, the first time in years, he made a deposit and 
established a credit. Then, a conservative amount 
mthdrawn, he proceeded to provide wardrobe for 
the dinner at the club where he should meet old-time 
friends, 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 155 


Myra went into the fruit shop. It was as Willy 
said. The Baroness was looking exceedingly dis- 
gusted ; Judith, exultant. Though she felt the sword 
of justice, in that Mr. Manning refused to help her 
make up her losses, she felt she was let off lightly 
by being bound over to keep the peace. She was 
busy bringing order out of chaos. The task was 
easier for her than for the Baroness, in that there 
was with her a sense of victory; for was not the 
Austrian Baroness swashing water on the Italian’s 
floor and, on patrician knees, wiping it up with her 
patrician hands? 

Myra looked at the shop and laughed to herself. 
What difference, except that one was pigmy and one 
colossal, between the street row of the near-by 
slums and the wars of nations! 


CHAPTER XXI 


W ILLY had disappeared for the moment, but 
when Myra issued from the shop, she saw 
him fulfilling his self-appointed mission of acting 
Saint Michael to the beasts Of the community, 
according to his own interpretation of what the 
duties of angel might be — so different from the in- 
terpretation she had intended to convey. His trans- 
lation had led him to turn the hose on some boys 
who were engaging in a battle royal. Immediate 
success is not always to the Saint Michaels, self- 
appointed, nor is recognition. The boys did not 
accept his interference as an intervention between 
their angels and their own misguided natures, so 
instead of quelling the fight Willy was only making 
matters worse. The hose did not marshall its forces 
on the side of the angel, but turned itself with its 
contents upon him. Wriggling gaily about from the 
force of the water fiowing through it, it turned, as 
a hose will, upon the just and the unjust, the peace 
propagandist as well as the fighters. It made a pool 
in the street and furnished protection for the con- 
testants. Willy, instead of standing with his foot 
victoriously upon him of the cloven hoof, was being 
crushed ignominiously into the mud, and mashed 
like the devil under their feet. 

Regardless of water, mud, and safety, Myra 
rushed to the aid of Willy who, having been placed 

156 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 157 


in the beast’s position, promptly displstyed his quali- 
ties. He came out from under the feet of the 
clawing opponents and went for them tooth and nail. 
Myra’s pleading availed nothing. She was sickened 
at the sight. She had been present at mental con- 
tests that prevail in “polite society,” where one is 
done to the death with weapons of the mind, and 
dies, sitting at a feast and clothed in laces or fine 
broadcloth ; but never had she witnessed a gory fight, 
wherein angels changed so obviously to beasts and 
fought as beasts. She tried to get at the trio to 
wrench them apart, but they wriggled about with 
an agility equal to the hose. That, by the way, was 
drenching her, but with the irony of fate never inter- 
fering with the contest between angels and beasts. 

Finally with a flash of Willy’s canny wit she 
bethought of using the hose herself. It was spilling 
out its contents upon the righteous; why not upon 
the unrighteous? Pacing the fusillade of water, 
with its millions of drops cutting her face, she used 
all her strength to bring the hose to bear on the 
fighters. 

As 9 he struggled to accomplish her purpose, a 
policeman rounded the corner and received such a 
barrage upon his person that he fell sprawling to 
the pavement in the constantly increasing pool of 
water Myra had not strength to stem. 

One of the boys saw the “cop” out of the corner 
of his eye. He lifted his foot from the head of the 
fallen, and disappeared. 

Surprised at this sudden desertion, the second boy 


158 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


looked up, sped after his chum, and was quickly 
out of sight. 

The onlookers, entertained, made no attempt to 
help Myra turn the flood. Willy, the weight of 
angelic beastliness litfed from his person, picked 
himself up and looked about him. He saw the 
policeman, and, more to the point, the policeman 
saw him. There was vengeance in his eye, and 
Willy saw it was directed toward him. He wanted the 
policeman to get wet some more, but policy, not 
any angel in him, advised otherwise. He ran toward 
the faucet inside the house. In a moment, the sting- 
ing stream began to fall in driblets. It ceased to 
pepper the officer, who rose, as Willy, with the 
virtuous expression of an angel, walked swiftly up 
to his quondam foe with an air of duty well done 
and gratitude assured. 

Drenched and quivering, Myra exonerated Willy 
to the officer, and ran toward her suite, thinking as 
she went. There was plenty of wallowing in the 
mud on the other side of the bridge. The mud was 
just as black and oozy, really just as filthy. It 
showed as much in a different way; that mental mud 
that fills minds and deluges lives with its muck. 
How constantly she traced resemblances between 
life on the other side and the life of the near-by 
slums! It is true she had escaped close, vicious 
contact with much on the other side, even though 
she had often sensed its presence. Here it was 
looming visibly; drawing close; smothering, terrify- 
ing, strangling her. She was becoming too intimate 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 159 

with it; it was inundating her with new experiences. 
Why was she fearing them? 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is,” 

she repeated, over and over. “I will keep the angel 
peeping through the cage of my human nature, and 
fear not!’* 

She was slipping her latch key into the lock of the 
door when a uniformed man approached the 
entrance. Another policeman! Would they never 
cease popping up about her like Dickens’ goblins! 
She stayed the throbbing of her heart by repeating 
the rare sweet hymn and did not turn until the man 
addressed her. 

‘T want Miss — ” He puzzled over the name, then 
held out the paper for her to decipher. 

An abject terror clutched her as her fingers closed 
over the official document. Her heart stopped, then 
leaped like a frightened deer. Cold sweat oozed 
from every pore; her hand trembled so the lines 
were unintelligible, for her swimming eyes saw her 
name. She was wanted by the courts. What had 
she done! What should she do! She had no tradi- 
tion to guide her. She knew only that she had 
dropped irremediably and irrevocably into the place 
to which Ted Dingley had seen her swiftly gliding. 
She was there, held in a vise from which there was 
no release. 

After a moment, she apprehended rather than read 
the intent of the summons. 

“Sure you are the right one? I have to deliver 


160 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


the paper personally.” The policeman looked her 
over and laughed. She was, indeed, a ludicrous 
sight, drenched as to clothing and hair; but royal in 
the beauty of her superb color, heightened by excite- 
ment, and her large, intense eyes, from which joy 
had fled, but from which she skilfully witheld tell- 
tale signs of terror and sense of degradation. 

The officer laughed again, familiarly, with a look 
that, not carrying with it the lasciviousness of the 
plumbing inspector, partook of a good-natured 
license that seared her sensitive heart like an iron 
of white heat. 

How she reached the head of the stairs she never 
knew. She was glad to find herself alone. She had 
been tenderjy reared; knew nothing of courts and 
courtrooms. This summons, whatever its meaning, 
was a deadly disgrace ; ludicrously so to one 
acquainted with business life and civil matters. To 
her, it rang the death knell to respectability, liveli- 
hood, everything! How to let her mother know! 
How to let Mart know! The latter, she would never 
do, could she avoid it. But how could she help that! 
What would the outcome be! Imprisonment, or a 
fine so heavy that she could not meet it! 

She had no one to ask advice excepting Mart, and 
if he must know, it should be after the horror had 
throttled her, not before. She would have to give 
up all of her happy work now, for she might be 
imprisoned. What had she done against the law! 
What was it all about! 

Her eyes still blurred with fright, she made a dive 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 161 


into the middle of the summons. She was hailed 
into court — of all things! — for doing plumbing with- 
out a license. That beast in human form! When 
she sent him to the cellar in the elevator, it seems 
she had sent herself to jail ! How strange the world ! 
If she had no work she was disgraced; if she did 
work, the city or the state tried to stop her! She 
did not understand! Yes, she did! It meant that 
anywhere, on any side of the bridge, she must know 
the law ; be assured of the basis of her action ! There 
was no excuse, anywhere, for ignorance! 

Though she had started up the stairs slowly, be- 
fore she had gone far she had plunged forward in 
- a frenzy. She had pushed through the door of the 
suite, halted only by the act of unlocking it. In the 
same frenzy she had been about to fall forward, 
dripping and muddy, on the new made couch in the 
alcove, which to both mother and daughter was the 
crowning feat of space saving, fine upholstering and 
home making effect. 

And for what! A court scene; a prison; at least, 
a fine too large to meet, and a disgrace never to be 
expunged. 

The signs of the couch awakened other thoughts. 
If she were to give up her work, she would not leave 
this, the finest fruits of their endeavors, muddied 
and smeared with signs of her defeat. So, though 
her body was wracked with the desire to fall down 
somewhere, drop, fiop, give up and give in, she saw 
no place where she could tumble to a capitulation 
without spoiling the freshness and cleanliness of the 


162 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


spot she and her mother had made home. It was 
plain; she had to stand up. It was not so easy to 
give up and give way and give in while standing up. 
The torrent of her nervous paroxysm flowed into an 
outlet of humor, broadened into tributaries of 
amusement, and she began to laugh. 

“It takes dust to make me see; blindness to make 
me feel ; nowhere to fall down to make me stand up ! 
I will not spoil that pretty new covering with the 
wet salt of my tears and the mud of my garments; 
nor christen the fruits of our honest endeavor with 
splashings of weakness. 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is.” 

Her words came in convulsive bursts: 

“His mercy faileth never;” 

The panting breath fought for its natural rhythm: 
“I nothing lack” 

The breath was bated ; it seemed that the respiration 
never again would resume its action: 

“For I am His,” 

The breath struggled slightly toward a strong, 
steady inhalation. The words she uttered became 
more distinct ; there came a calm, a controlled intake 
of breath; then clearly and firmly she finished the 
quatrain : 


“And He is mine forever.” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 163 

The tempest ceased and signs of the storm were 
scarcely apparent when her mother returned. At 
first she noted only that Myra was dressing; but 
the truth must be told, and after Mrs. Harndon had 
rested a while, Myra produced the harrowing docu- 
ment. Mrs. Harndon was dumbfounded and as 
ignorant as her daughter of what to do. To Myra’s 
relief, and really to her surprise, she took the matter 
far more philosophically than she herself had done. 

“This sojourn in this world of ‘the other side of 
the bridge,’ as you call it, is doing us both good, 
Myra. We know pretty nearly nothing of life, as 
we lived it over there. I suppose business men meet 
such things as this every day, and bear them very 
generally with equanimity and as passing events; 
bear them in the midst of responsibilities to self, 
home, city, nation, world ; while so far in our 
voyages of discovery on both sides our responsibili- 
ties have extended very little beyond ourselves, and, 
in a vital manner, not at all. I can not help you 
one bit in this matter, though in the world on the 
other side I was supposed to be a woman of affairs 
and of action. I am ashamed.” 

“Whatever I am to do,” concluded Myra, “I have 
grit and God and God’s supply. I am going on with 
a good day’s work and not say a word to Mart or 
his father, should they come tonight. I am going 
to get off the old coverings of the furniture we are 
working on for Mrs. Alden’s lodging house. If I 
have to give up, I don’t suppose you can go on 
without me. You can not climb ladders. It looks 


164 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


as if we should have to go to some of our friends, 
after all!” 

“I thought you had already done so. I thought 
you had gone to the ‘Lord of Love!’ Myra, where 
is the faith you taught me, that day?” 

“Yes! But He requires action on our parts! I 
suppose I could marry Ted, but he will never want 
me now, and I couldn’t marry him if he did. I 
wonder why attraction will be so contrary! Mother! 
Don’t you think Mart’s father is lovely?” 

“I do.” Mrs. Harndon looked steadily down at 
her gloves, which she was folding. “Very lovely, 
dear.” 

“I just can’t let those splendid men know about 
this. I don’t suppose they ever thought a license 
necessary for homemaking, other than a marriage 
license.” 

“Somehow, I feel it will be all right. Use the 
courage with which you so often encourage me. 
Who informed, do you suppose?” 

“That beast of an inspector. He used to be the 
agent and was angry at us because he was dis- 
charged.” She told her mother of the agent’s visit. 

Myra worked fast and hard all day. When even- 
ing came, with a feeling of farewell, she looked 
about the place they had made so attractive. All 
that goes to the outward appearance of a well- 
appointed home was there, exquisitely simple. 
When their soul left that shell could another enter 
in? Can a soul honor and justify an embodiment 
it has not made for itself? May one prepare an 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 165 


embodiment for another soul to dwell therein and 
use? Who shall know! She sighed and put away 
her working materials. 

The two Mannings called that evening to plan for 
a reception for their tenants. They stood in the 
living room of this tiny spot that could easily be 
tucked away in a corner of their palatial home on 
the other side of the bridge, appreciatively taking 
in the harmony, balance, and proportion of the 
endeavor; then, eyes resting upon the women who 
stood ready to greet them, they sighed their satis- 
faction into words — “Ah! This is home, indeed!” 


CHAPTER XXII 


A PTER the four had arranged the programme in 
question, Mart called to mind that there was a 
fine suite interior at the playhouse a few blocks 
away. He had passed the place on the way to the 
Hamdons and had noticed the billboard. He felt 
sure Mrs. Hamdon and her daughter would enjoy 
the picture. 

“Your work will call for many interiors and there 
are interesting ones of all sorts in picture plays. 
It would take years of research, much travel, intro- 
ductions galore and in many cases unobtainable to 
individuals, to find interiors such as are seen at the 
photo-play.” 

“Then, too, the proportions are easily and quickly 
discerned. That is not always the case with plates 
and diagrams.” 

“Plates are so minimized a vivid imagination is 
needed to image feudal domains on a sheet of paper, 
don’t you find it so?” 

Myra and Mart walked on for a minute or two 
without speaking. 

“The screen gives the observer the perspective, 
atmosphere, and the very life activities for which 
each interior is planned.” 

Mart looked at the woman beside him with a 
great rush of pity, as she continued, intensely: “It 
provides context, too. Context is as important as 

i66 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 167 

the thing itself! Who can express herself, if her 
every day context is in antagonism to her nature!” 

“The lily and the Christ!” said Mart softly. 

The two were still again- Mart’s face was very 
white; Myra’s beautiful with beauty that was not 
there before; the beauty that comes with a revela- 
tion of light. 

“I have not told you about Willy and his meta- 
morphosis of this morning, have I!” It was Myra 
who broke the silence. “Willy and his ubiquitous 
hose. He must be a grandson of Neptune.” 

“From what you tell me. Saint Michael must be 
his, by adoption only! Certainly Willy is vei’y 
funny.” This, after they had laughed together over 
the incident of the morning. 

“Proteus must be in his family.” How delightful 
to play Mythology with a playmate who could and 
would enter into the fun of metaphors. “Yes, Willy’s 
Grandaddy must be Proteus. He squirms so easily 
and unexpectedly from Saint Michael to the 
Beast — ” 

“And back again into Saint Michael under the 
inspiration of your love!” Mart smiled tenderly. 

All this on the way to the pboto-play. 

The interiors were certainly very attractive; but 
the play was full of heart-ache, and there was a 
court scene. Mart laughed at Myra for the morbid 
curiosity she displayed at the court proceedings. 
She questioned him constantly about the person- 
alities of the court officials, the names of the differ- 
ent courts, and the sorts of crimes tried in each. 


168 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


Especially was she interested in the city court. She 
wanted to know where the criminals stood; whom 
they addressed; if they sat or stood while on the 
stand; if the lawyer always came close up to the 
criminal or witness and put his elbow on the chair 
in that insolently familiar manner and if there was 
no way of preventing such impertinence. She 
wanted to know if one had a lawyer for every sort 
of case; if, when one was summoned to court, he 
had to get a lawyer; if the case was presented and 
decided by the judge; if there was always a jury; 
who was called first, witness or criminal. She took 
such evident pains to roll the word “criminal” under 
her tongue, that Mart looked at her curiously and 
asked if she intended taking up the study of law or 
seeking a position as matron of the juvenile court. 

In the photo-play a refined young woman, like 
herself, was arraigned. Myra did not notice what 
the crime was. Her whole attention was centered 
upon the staging of the trial. A nervous chill seized 
her, and she shook so that the elder Manning noticed 
her discomfort and presently suggested a change 
from the moving picture, with its tragedy, to a re- 
markable psychological drama being enacted with 
great success at one of the theatres. He said 
casually that he thought the legitimate drama might 
please the ladies as well as the photo-play, even 
though there were no suite interiors such as were 
so attracting Mart. 

In the open air, away from scenes of courts and 
trials, Myra recovered her spirits, but she would not 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 169 


confide the secret of her attack of “nerves.’' 

“Something is troubling you. You are not the 
sort of girl to have ‘nerves’ without cause,” he 
asserted positively. 

Myra laughed. 

“I would run away and leave you without letting 
you know where to find me, rather than tell you 
what made me shake so in there,” she declared. 

“I shall find out. I shall find out everything about 
you, for I love you, love you, Myra ! As for running 
away, you couldn’t do it! I should find you if you 
went to the ends of the earth!” 

“That is motion picture fever,” smiled Myra, and 
almost had another chill. To be loved by Mart! 
She, who was summoned to court to be jailed, or 
what not! After tomorrow morning, she could never 
look him in the face again ! — But she loved him, and 
he had come to her as a part of God’s supply! 

He urged her for an answer, but she was dumb. 
After a while she recovered herself. Through all 
the horror of the approaching morrow, her soul 
should sing in faith and trust, 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is!” 

“How happy father looks strolling along with 
your mother. That little look of pain is disappearing 
from behind the brightness of his face. It hasn’t 
been absent since mother died, until he met your 
mother!” whispered Mart when he found Myra 
refused to respond to his words in the affirmative, 
yet feeling that she was not refusing him in her 


170 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


heart. “Dear dad, he loves home! Mother was ill 
a long time before she died. That has had its effect 
on dad. It has made him so thoughtful, strong, and 
true, — as if he were not that before, but it has 
brought out those qualities, her helplessness, you 
know. I wish your mother would like dad, Myra, 
I wish she would.*' 

“If you are going to turn matchmaker. Mart, you 
should select a better section of the city from which 
to make your choice. I very much question the 
advisability of your even calling on us, though we 
are your tenants and you call alike on all. We are, 
or perhaps fancy we are, still too apparently of the 
other side of the bridge for it to mean the same for 
you to visit us, as to visit Willy’s mother or the pre- 
ceptress of your grandmother, or the little journalist 
and the stenographer with neuritis.” 

“By the way,” Mart wholly ignored her remarks, 
“by the way, do you know Mr. Queen is likely to 
prove of great value to the old friend who was honest 
enough to pay a debt after many years. There has 
been a revival of some old properties that have en- 
hanced almost fabulously in value. The beginnings 
of the transactions are nebulous to the men of these 
times. Mr. Queen knows all about them first hand, 
and can afford valuable assistance. Do you notice 
how the years have dropped from him?” 

“He looked very happy this morning when I met 
him talking with Miss Chester. He told me a little; 
but refrained, through modesty evidently, from say- 
ing much. Mart, I don’t like to hint to mother in 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 171 


the remotest degree, the serious complications — ” 

“Then don’t hint it and don’t think it!’’ 

But Myra went gravely on, “that may arise if we 
accept invitations from you and your dear father. 
She is so innocent, and so happy! Still, I really 
think that hereafter you would better see us only 
on a strict business basis and at the receptions you 
give the tenants.” 

At this point the quartet reached the entrance to 
the theatre, and in the best seats where every shade 
of expression on the faces of the actors was plainly 
discernible, the four sat witness to the acme of art, 
through the medium of one of the finest dramas of 
the decade. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


T here was no sleep for Myra or her mother 
that night, and early in the morning they rose 
and dressed for their ordeal. 

They had no idea where to find the city court or 
what to do when they got there. Myra felt to their 
everlasting disgrace they must apply to a policeman 
for directions. Heretofore she had considered 
policemen in the light of friendly human sign posts; 
now they were ghouls leaping without warning from 
the invisible and hovering ever near to wreak her 
ill! She checked herself! Why be afraid of police- 
men, of courts, of anything? Why should she 
consider them an adjunct to her present life! Had 
she not come in contact with policemen always; 
just that their coats were different. Besides, every- 
thing worked, like Willy’s hose, sometimes to good, 
sometimes to disaster. Ah! Perhaps Willy could be 
her guide. She suspected he knew a little about 
courts and city fathers from heresay and observa- 
tion, if not from actual experience. Yes, Willy 
should be her guide! 

She went to the lower door of the apartment 
house and looked up the street. There was Willy 
on the sidewalk. Mr. Manning, seeing his liking for 
watering hose, had given him one to keep the side- 
walks clean. It was to be his very own so long as he 
used it only for the good of the community. He was 

172 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 173 

using it for the good of the community now; plying 
it vigorously on the dull and dirty bricks that were 
coming out day by day from under the slime into 
the light and air. Willy was very proud of being 
stopped in his work and told what a difference a 
clean sidewalk makes in the appearance of a street. 
With so fine a weapon of defence, he no longer 
feared the bullies. He looked so well protected with 
that fine column of water playing where he would! 
The bullies did not know he had promised to use 
it in the ways of peace alone, and never as an in- 
strument of offense. His reputation had gone forth 
into his world, and that was his real protection, 
rather than the hose. 

“Willy, you are making a new place out of Sweet 
Street; it is growing sweet by nature as well as by 
name. Now we must keep it free from fruit peelings 
and papers. By the way, do you know much about 
the public buildings of the city?” 

“Yep; teacher takes us through ’em sometimes.” 

“What ones do you know about?” 

“She’s took us to the jail an’ the state house an’ 
the city hall, an’ some of the courts.” 

“Do you know where the city court is?” 

“Yep,” suspiciously. “What yer want ter know 
for?” 

Willy, at thirteen, thrown on his own resources, 
was keener of discernment than many older on the 
sheltered other side of the bridge. Myra, thinking 
this, decided to confide in him. 


174 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“I am going to tell you something and ask you to 
help me.” 

An opportunity to do something for his adored! 
Sitting on the curb stone in front of her flat and 
wanting to do something was nothing compared to 
the splendid opportunity of really doing it! If only 
he could measure up ! He felt, somehow, that it was 
a real need she had; not one of those things folks 
make up for you to do. He played the hose absently, 
while he lifted his face earnestly to hers and listened- 

It was a dear little face back of the dirt and grime 
and the canny look that circumstances had written 
into it, as they write themselves into the fox until 
they fashion his heredity. This canniness had not 
yet quite become heredity with Willy. There was 
this about Willy as a student that was to his ad- 
vantage: his forbears had thought so little about 
anything of any sort, good or ill, that there were 
no previous impressions deeply engraven into char- 
acter to interfere with present ones, as is the case 
when accepted opinions become dogmatism, then 
tradition, then heredity. Drifting was his chief 
heritage. Drifting ceases when there are moorings. 
Willy’s moorings, of a very pleasant sort, were 
coming into view. Their pleasantness attracted him. 

As Myra looked meditatively at him her mind took 
a new turn concerning him. He became less like a 
drifting boat than a great fleld of earth. His 
heredity had given him fewer stones than many 
minds had; fewer deeply imbedded rocks. Too 
much sand as yet; but the sun and rain of circum- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 175 


stance — altogether, Willy’s mind was a very good 
site for a mental truck garden! She cut short her 
soliloquy. Yes, there was Willy, and Willy stood 
ready and glad to help her. 

The boy was watching her keenly. 

“Say, w’at they got yer for? I seen that nasty, 
mean agent goin’ into your house an’ cornin’ out’n 
the cellar door mad as blazes, an’ writin’. He’s 
got somethin’ to do about this, huh? He’s mean 
enough to do anything. I hates him! Is yer rent 
behind? Don’t be skeered! They don’t take people 
to city court for rent; they jest put ’em out. It’s 
only after they are out an’ don’t know where to go 
that they takes ’em to court for hangin’ round. 
You ain’t put out, yet. I wouldn’t get skeered of the 
court till yer gets put out.” 

“Do I look scared?” said Myra, faintly- 

“Yep, you looks brave one way, but skeered 
another, like I feels w’en I sees Jimmy Bones an’ 
that wrastler, Rafty, cornin’ roun’ the corner. There 
ain’t no bullies like them fer you to be afraid of. Miss 
Myra.” 

“How are you so wise, boy?” 

“I seen a perliceman speak to yer an’ give yer 
a paper. I wuz lookin’ at you an’ I sees you wuz 
skeered. It ain’t worth while to get skeered. I gets 
skeered ; but it don’t never do nuthin’ fer me ! I jes’ 
has all my bad feelins’ fer nuthin’. W’en a cop, 
roun’ here, hands folks a paper, it’s likely they wants 
’em to the city court.” 

“That is true of me, Willy. They want me at the 


176 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


city court because I was fixing the kitchen sink ; and 
that man, who is plumbing inspector for this district, 
found me at work. He has reported me for doing 
plumbing without a license.” 

“He’s a — !” Willy’s epithets shocked Myra’s ears, 
but comforted her heart. 

‘‘Don’t be skeered!” Willy kept saying this over, 
until its purport sank into Myra’s consciousness, 
and soothed her nerves. She opened up her confi- 
dence still more to the little fellow. 

‘‘I must be at the city court at ten o’clock, and I 
don’t know how to get there nor what to do after 
I am there.” 

‘’ll go with yer an’ tell yer.” There was a wonder- 
ful comfort in the words. A mean thought slipped 
into her mind that passers by, seeing them going to 
the court together, might conclude she was going 
with him to get him out of trouble. She checked 
the despicable suggestion and chased it from her 
mind with whiplashes of reproach and cheeks burn- 
ing with shame. She filled its place with gratitude 
towards the little knight God had sent, full 
panoplied, to relieve his fair lady in distress. 

“Will the policeman take me there?” A faintness 
came over her at the thought of the disgrace 
entailed- 

“Naw! Yer jes’ bet yer goes of yourself, 
a-humpin’ w’en yer gets summons from the court, 
unless yer want’s more than is a cornin’ to yer. 
Yer jes’ natcherally goes! Don’t be skeered!” The 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 177 

tones were wonderfully soothing. “I’ll go with yer, 
tell yer w’at to do, an* all about it.” 

“How do you know so much?’* 

“Yer jes* natcherally knows about w’at’s goin* 
on about yer if yer sits up an* takes notice, an* is 
about all the time where things is buzzin*. Don’t 
yer see? Don’t you know about things I don’t 
know, ’cause you’se where those sorts of things is 
doin’? Pshaw! That is a question! Ask me some- 
thing easier!*’ 

“It was stupid, sure enough, Willy. Somehow, I 
have gotten to feel that everything I don’t know 
about and haven’t seen is strange and terrible, in- 
stead of just as natural as what I have always seen 
and known. Have you ever been up before a court?” 

“Naw! But I’ve been to see other folks. We 
don’t go to the same court as you do. We goes to 
the juvenile court w’en we kids gets called up.” 

“You’ve been to see — ” faltered Myra. “Is there 
an audience?” 

“Yep, reporters and folks that likes such things. 
Don’t be skeerjed. Yer. jes’ goes in an’ sits down, 
an’ then ye’re called, an’ yer gets up an’ goes to a 
big platform near the judge an’ sits down an’ — oh, 
yer takes the oath first.” 

On a platform! This was horrible. She had 
always refused committeeships on the other side of 
the bridge, when there was any platform business. 
Her education of the present certainly was a uni- 
versity extension course compared to what she had 
received of practical experience on the other side. 


178 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


“Yer has ter give yer name, an’ speak loud so’s 
they kin hear. It makes ’em awful mad if yer don’t 
speak so’s they kin hear; an’ as they isn’t listenin’ 
much, most of the time, yer has ter yell, ter even 
get the sound of yer voice inside their nuts.” 

“Oh! Willy, I can’t!” 

“Yes yer kin! Don’t be skeered! It don’t do a 
bit of good! It ain’t nothin’! Lots of them same 
people as is listenin’ an’ maybe judgin’ yer has done 
as much, an wuss! Don’t be skeered!” 

“What must I say, after I tell my name and 
swear?” she shuddered- 

“Jes’ look at that jedge the way yer looked at me 
the day I spoiled yer windows an’ yer never let on 
that yer knew I done it. I never meant ter tell yer; 
but I can’t help it with you lookin’ at me that pitiful. 
Gosh, Miss Myra, you’d melt a heart of stone!” 

“Where did you get that, Willy?” Myra had to 
smile inside, despite her dismay. 

“Out’n the movies. I gets a great deal out’n the 
movies. I ain’t seen many real jedges in my life, 
but at the movies I’ve seen a good many real kind 
jedges. I know there’s mean ones, too, lots of ’em,” 
reluctantly, “but lots of ’em is nice. Honest, Miss 
Myra, don’t be skeered. Be brave. Miss Myra! I’ll 
bet you’ll find a nice jedge there that’ll say to that 
snipe of an inspector, ‘Ye’re a mean skunk! I’ll 
jail yer fer yer meaness an’ fer usin’ yer right ter 
be mean. You are guilty of subreption!’ ” 

“Where did you get that word!” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 179 


“Out’n the movies. You keep right up with the 
movies an’ there ain’t much, pretty soon, yer don’t 
know!” 

“That is true. When must we start, Willy?” 

“Better go right in an’ get ready now. We’ll start 
right off an’ get there early.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


I T was interesting to observe, through the natural 
manner in which Mrs. Harndon joined Willy on 
the trip to the city court, how elevated into the 
spirit of true brotherhood her ideals had become. 
She was rather silent but not at all perturbed at the 
presence of the little figure hopping or walking or 
leaping about them. He looked up so constantly at 
the face of his adored one that once or twice he 
nearly tumbled over backward. He led the way 
through intricacies of streets to make short cuts, 
darting through places the two women, though 
brought up within the orbits of these mysteries, had 
never dreamed existed- 

This diversion helped re-establish Myra’s relations 
with the world; to take away that sense of divorce- 
ment from decency that the advent of the summons 
had brought her. No one eyed them askance ; every- 
one, so far as they could see, seemed to be minding 
his or her own business. 

“When we get to the court, will they look at us 
any more than these people do, Willy?” 

“Yep, they’ll stare their nuts off an’ their poppers 
out, ’specially at you. Miss Myra. But don’t be 
skeered.’’ 

The reiterant phrase brought Myra back to the 
wonderful expression of the same intent, in different 
phrase : 

“The Lord of Love, my shepherd is 
I nothing lack, for I am His.” 

i8o 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 181 


The commonplace of thousands hurrying their 
ways without even a glance at them restored her 
to the equilibrium of the usual things of life. It 
rubbed out her sense of self, as, with sandpaper, she 
rubbed down uneven applications of paint in her 
work on the suites. She told her mother about this. 
The thought helped them both. It brought to them 
a sense of unity instead of separateness. 

Finally they arrived at the large square, in the 
centre of which was the building where was held the 
court to which they were summoned. 

When inside the building, they asked questions 
of officials who answered curtly, lazily, indifferently, 
half-impertinently, or courteously, according to the 
man, rather than the office. They received one 
puzzling direction after another and were sent out 
of their way several times. The chill of fear gripped 
Myra. The watchful Willy sensed rather than saw 
her every change of feeling and plunged sturdily 
ahead, more dazed than he wished her to realize 
and more mystified by contradictory directions than 
had he followed his own misty recollections of the 
way. Again and again he brought the two women 
from following false trails back to the entrance. 
At last he said, “I ain’t goin’ ter ask no more ques- 
tions, Miss Myra, I’m jes’ goin’ there; an’ don’t be 
skeered.” 

After this astounding statement, he stood still a 
moment, shut his eyes, then, almost like a dog 
scenting a trail, shot off in the direction of what 
truly proved to be the court room. 


182 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“Having to hustle to find even a disagreeable 
thing is something of a restorer of equilibrium, isn’t 
it, Mother!” as they threaded their way among 
peoples of strange sorts. 

Seated in the court room, the strain of waiting 
for her case to be called cau^d repeated renewals 
of fear and nervousness. She met every quiver with 
the thought of her favorite hymn. As it sounded 
through her mind as in response to the baton of a 
leader, there crept into her heart like a fugue move- 
ment Willy’s hoarse, but soothing, whisper, as he 
crept closer to her side and patted the hand lying 
helplessly on her lap. “Don’t be skeered. Miss Myra, 
don’t be skeered.” 

Finally she became interested in the cases and so 
nearly forgot her own she did not at once respond 
when her name was called. It did not sound familiar 
to her, somehow, and it took a nudge from Willy 
to rouse her to movement. She rose weakly and 
went haltingly forward while a raucous voice in- 
toned in her ears, “All parties and witnesses in this 
case, come to the bar.” Like a life-line shot out 
to draw her to shore, Willy’s whisper followed, 
buoyed her up, and stretched on ahead of her, up 
to the very bar, “Miss Myra, don’t be skeered.” By 
the time she reached the stand she was composed. 

Myra was very beautiful and a gentlewoman. The 
judge recognized this. A look of wonderment crept 
into his eyes, that heretofore had been dull and un- 
interested. He was accustomed to squalor, inanity, 
maudlin weeping, fierce rebellion, or sullen acqui- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 183 


escence to decree. Here was something different. 
He straightened himself slightly from the slouching, 
informal attitude in which he had conducted the 
previous cases and eyed this offender piercingly. 
Preliminaries over, he proceeded with the case. 

“What do they say you are summoned for?” he 
said curtly. It was not till then that Myra felt, 
rather than saw, the inspector of plumbing. 

“For doing interior decorating and plumbing with- 
out a license, Your Honor ” 

“What’s that last?” He had not listened 
especially to the clerk. “For doing what?'* 

“Plumbing, Your Honor.” 

Try as she would, she could, not keep her eyes 
from twinkling. Despite her indignation and con- 
cern, she could but be amused at the incongruity 
presented between her well-groomed self and the 
charge against her. Her sense of humor was keenly 
alive, as the misnomer, ‘Your Honor,’ left her lips 
and she looked at the man who occupied, rather 
than filled, the official chair. 

Her days of affluence were not so far removed but 
that certain distinctive features of apparel were in 
evidence; fine shoes, threadlace veil, immaculate 
gloves, and manner; above all, manner! 

“Guilty or not guilty!” rasped the judge. He was 
opposed to women entering the marts of trade or 
any other mart save that of matrimony; especially 
into public life of any sort. At this very moment 
he was in danger of losing his judgeship to a woman ; 
and though he could not stem the tide of what she 


184 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


called “progress” and he called “damned impu- 
dence/' he was doing all in his power to make the 
ordeal especially disagreeable to any woman who 
crossed swords with his official capacity, be she 
criminal, witness, or opponent. In this case, he 
chose to jump to the conclusion that here was a rich 
aspirant for lucre and publicity, stealing the job of 
some honest plumber of the male persuasion, and 
bread from the mouths of hungry children. He 
proceeded with the case accordingly. 

“Guilty or not guilty!" 

“I am guilty of cleaning out the vent of the 
kitchen sink. Whether I am guilty of disobeying 
the law I do not know." 

“Keep to the point!" snarled the judge. He 
directed the clerk to read the article pertaining to 
the transgression. 

“Is this right. Inspector?" He turned to the 
plumbing inspector. 

“It is. Your Honor." 

Myra felt as if stung by a reptile as she heard the 
inspector’s voice; but she made no sign. 

“Without a license?" The judge turned to Myra. 

“Yes, Your Honor " 

“You plead guilty?" 

“Of doing plumbing and decorating without a 
license? I do." 

“Fine: twenty-five dollars for the plumbing and 
fifty for the decorating. Next case.’’ 

Myra’s heart nearly stopped beating. She could 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 185 


as easily place the moon and seven stars at the feet 
of the court, as seventy-five dollars. 

“Don’t be skeered, Miss Myra, don’t be skeered!’’ 
rang out in shrill, excited tones through the court 
room. “I tell yer. Miss Myra, don't be skeered!” 

“Order!” came the sharp, official retort; but the 
attention of the judge was attracted toward the 
voice. There in his seat, his hair on end, his eyes 
bulging, his hands gripped, his body thrust forward 
as if for a spring, was Willy. He popped his hand 
over his mouth as the reprimand reached him; but 
his eyes never left Myra, outwardly calm, and very 
beautiful, upon the stand. 

“The alternative?” she was asking calmly. 

The judge faltered. He began to be ashamed of 
baiting this refined woman whose composure was 
meeting and slowly overcoming his animus, just to 
satisfy his petty revenge against the female sex. 
Aside from his dislike of the whole feminine gender 
in court and mart, it had interested him to prod and 
sting her to vary for the time the monotony of the 
morning’s sordid work. It waked him out of his dull 
routine to see her eyes flash and watch her de- 
meanor, knowing only by her heightened color that 
a tempest seethed within. 

“The alternative?” repeated Myra with increasing 
calm. It was as if help were very near, so fine a 
wave of relief cooled her blood, and restored her 
tumultuous heart-beats to normal. “I can not pay 
the fine.” 

There was a gasp of horror, quickly sifted by the 


186 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


mother. Then, through the court room, filled with 
its sordid sprinkling of humanity, rang again that 
child’s voice. 

“Don’t be sheered. Miss Myra! Don’t be sheered! 
I wish I could tell a thing or two I knows about that 
bloke as they’ve got there!’’ 

A policeman’s hand was laid heavily on the shoul- 
der of the boy, but he was not afraid- He jumped 
from his seat, repeating, “Don’t be sheered. Miss 
Myra, don’t be sheered!” 

“Wait a minute. Officer,” said the judge. “Bring 
that boy here. What ‘bloke’ do you mean and what 
do you know? Wait, the oath. Now: You under- 
stand you have sworn to tell the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, s’help me God!” 

The senseless, almost ribald, manner in which this 
sacred oath was administered, horrified Myra. If 
that Name were so lightly taken in the courts, what 
might be the attitude of the court toward Truth, 
and what wonder that listeners in the courtroom 
went out and daily took that Name in vain! The 
careless manner of the clerk as he slung off the 
stereotyped phrase, and the like manner of the judge 
toward her as he settled to the case arrested her 
attention. As these two brushed aside the name of 
God, so does the average man brush aside woman 
when he faces her on the business plane. Before 
such pushing aside as a phase, an incident, only, 
must Truth become a rabbit running for safety to 
its warren, but harried to its death by dogs? She 
was recalled to her case by hearing Willy’s voice. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 187 

“I seen that bloke go in to Miss Myra’s. I knowed 
she wuz alone, ’cause I seen her mother go out. 
Judge, that man is guilty of subreption.” 

“Where ever did you get that word, as long as 
yourself!” The Judge looked amused and surprised, 
as had Myra earlier in the day. 

“Out’n the movies.” Willy tumbled on in his ex- 
planation, his little face growing tender; the eerie 
look retiring before the expression of his love. 

“The Beast lies low. Saint Michael has his foot 
upon its head,” thought Myra. 

“He is a mean bloke,” Willy was saying, “jes’ as 
mean as he can be. He wuz an evictor, an’ Mr. 
Manning put him off ’cause he didn’t want no 
’victors. Next thing, one day a good while after, 
I sees him hangin’ roun’ the plumber w’at does Mr. 
Manning’s plumbin’ an’ he had a badge of inspector 
on him- ’Nen one day I seen him go to Miss Myra’s 
an’ purty soon he comes through the cellar door 
lookin’ dreadful mad. ’Nen the police come an’ Miss 
Myra, she wuz goin’ in, an’ a cop come, an’ I seen 
him give her a paper. She turned all white like an’ 
sort of tumbled up stairs. This mornin’ she looked 
fer me an’ told me as how she wuz unstoppin’ the 
kitchen sink an’ the inspector come an’ had her took 
to the court fer doin’ it. An’ I said I’d help her an’ 
fer not ter be skeered.” 

The Judge, who at first had been listening to 
Willy’s testimony with unconcealed amusement, 
grew grave. The chivalry of the little fellow stimu- 


188 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


lated his own which had grown sleepy under the 
drug of spleen. 

“You keep pretty close tab on Miss Myra, eh!” 

“Yep. W’en I can, I sits outside her door on the 
curbstone. I can’t be there always,’’ ruefully. 

The Judge smiled. His face softened. 

“Why didn’t you tell me this at once?” 

“I didn’t know I could.” 

“Ever been in court yourself?” 

“Naw.” 

“What do you mean when you say the inspector — 
no. Inspector, I am not ready to hear your testimony 
yet. I must hear this boy’s story first. What do 
you mean when you say the inspector is guilty of 
subreption?” 

“He’s made up something to get back something 
on Miss Myra.” 

“How did you learn about subreption?” 

“At the movies.’’ 

“Retain this boy as witness in your case. 
Gentlemen.” The Judge looked toward a group who 
were waiting to be called concerning stricter censor- 
ship of the photo-play- “Movies teach vocaulary, at 
all events. Now, madame, tell me more definitely 
about this matter. If the case is important, why is 
there no lawyer?” 

“I know no more about the procedure of courts 
than a baby. When I was summoned, I came; that 
is all I knew how to do. I should have found 
difficulty even in that, but for my kind helper, here.” 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 189 


Willy bristled with happiness. The Judge con- 
tinued. 

“Were you doing this work on your own apart- 
ment?” 

“I was.” 

“Why didn’t you say so? You would have been 
released without question. Doing business without 
a license is what the court objects to!” 

“I am in business. I have entered into verbal con- 
tract with the owners of the property to make their 
flats, settings for homes. Your Honor, sewer odors 
and vile cellars have no part in the settings of homes, 
and as a Home Maker I felt it a moral responsibility 
to try to overcome them. When the plumber failed 
to accomplish results I undertook to succeed. I had 
no idea that I needed a license. When the plumbing 
inspector called I — He will tell you. Your Honor, 
making settings for homes is my business. For that, 
I have no license.” 

The judge was silent. Into his heart, there crept 
uneasiness. He should have thrown the case out 
without all this pro and con- Should he demean 
himself by continuing to harry this woman whose 
dignity through his petty inquisition was restoring 
his sense of right? Of course there was no case. 
He had been amused till now, and now he was 
ashamed. 

“Your Honor!” There came a voice from the rear 
of the court room. “I should like to testify.” 

“I came in just now, to attend the case for further 
censorship of the photo-play. I heard a little of 


190 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


this present case. I am wholly to blame for the 
situation.’' 

“Wait, Mr. Manning. If you have anything to say, 
come and be sworn. Now, what is your testimony?" 

“This young woman and her mother are tenants 
of ours. We engaged them as home makers, to do 
over some suites in a simple, day-to-day domestic 
fashion; the idea being to suggest to the occupants 
how, of themselves, to keep the apartments simple, 
tasteful, and clean, providing such furnishings as 
are necessary to this end. It never occurred to us 
that making settings for homes in such fashion calls 
for a license. . As their employers, I hasten to pay 
the fine and request a license. I am distressed that 
I should have brought about this situation because 
I neglected to couple altruism with knowledge of 
civic law, and ideals with practical application. As 
to that man," turning his back on the inspector, 
“I suggest that he be taught to couple common- 
sense and judgment with the future administration 
of his duties. I could say more," hotly, “but I should 
be fined for contempt, and the money can be better 
spent in some other way, as in giving Willy a 
party — " 

“Order in the court. Inspector, in the future you 
are not to burden the court with cases too small to 
bring to its attention. A word of suggestion on your 
part was all that was necessary. The case is dis- 
missed* What is the next case. Officer?" 

“The censoring of the movies. Your Honor." 

“Call it." 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 191 


“Principals and witnesses of the case of lax 
censorship of the photo-play come forward to the 
bar.” 

And the wheels of the court machinery went on 
grinding out decisions concerning the affairs of men. 


CHAPTER XXV 


A S soon as the case on the censoring of the photo- 
play was over, Mart and Mr. Manning and 
Willy went, post haste, to the Harndons. 

“We’re goin’ ter have a party. Miss Myra!’’ Willy 
melted at once with the fires of his enthusiasm, the 
restraint that might otherwise have existed. 

“Yes, Miss Myra, an’ Mr. Manning says we can 
have it here in the suite where the receptions is or — 
jes’ listen! he will take all the tenants out in auto- 
mobiles to Whereinbega Park, where’s they’s 
everything! We can go in the evenin’ so’s the Pre- 
ceptress can see the electric fountain w’at she ain’t 
never seen. It’ll be so sort of ’suspicious an’ 
mysterious, there in the dark an’ we can be half 
skeered an’ half brave at the shadows an’ the dark! 
Not me, though ! After today. Miss Myra, I ain’t 
never goin’ ter be skeered at nuthin’ ! I see it ain’t 
worth while! They’ll always be some way out! 
You an’ me,’’ proudly, “didn’t see no way out w’en 
we started this mornin’; but there wuz, all the 
same!” 

“Yes, Willy, boy, ‘there wuz, all the same!’ ” 
Myra looked at the little fellow with loving eyes. 
“Mr. Manning, ‘The Lord of Love my shepherd is.’ 
How often He comes in the form of a little child.” 

The invitations were sent out in Willy’s name to 
all the tenants who had shown themselves in sym- 

192 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 193 


pathy with the interests of the apartments. The 
Baron and Baroness were invited; but declined with 
thanks in perfect form on a piece of paper in which 
meat had been wrapped. They confided to Myra 
that they had no wish to be on friendly terms with 
the canaille about them, and advised her to follow 
their example. They themselves had hopes of re- 
gaining their old station if not their former wealth, 
for in their work with the North American Civic 
League of Immigration, their daughter had met a 
prince of their own country. It is true he had come 
over in the steerage and had left all his estates in 
the land of Never More. But! He was a prince! 
He was falling promptly in love with their daughter. 
If the world did not, they would know she was a 
princess, when the marriage was consummated. 
They would bring about them a court of their own, 
different from this melee the Mannings were trying 
to create out of what they called ‘the intrinsic worth 
of the individual!’ Brrrrrrrrr! 

Their refusal made it easier for Judith and her 
husband to accept, but with whom to leave the shop! 
Miss Chester offered to resign the coveted pleasure 
and take their place, but Mr. Manning would not 
permit the sacrifice. Mrs. Hamdon, whose life had 
been filled to satiety with fetes and who shrank 
from the toss and turmoil Willy so coveted, insisted 
that Miss Chester go with the party, while she 
herself would take Judith’s place for the evening 
in the little fruit shop, no longer dirty and suggestive 
of decay, but attractive and picturesque. Mr. 


194 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


Manning felt that Myra and Mart could easily 
manage the Wherimbega end, and after the party 
had set off the two were to be found ensconced in 
the pretty setting of vari-colored fruits in Judith’s 
shop, the aroma of oranges and potted plants as 
nectar to the senses. Sweet, gracious, full of charm, 
was she; noble, with the face of a philanthropist, 
was he. So they sat together in the little shop, 
waiting on the few customers who came to be 
served. 

Meanwhile Willy in the front seat of the leading 
automobile was escorting his guests toward Wher- 
imbega Park. The Preceptress was under his tri- 
umphant protection. This need not be for long. 
Mart had told him; it was done only to make her 
feel the joys of being guest of honor instead of 
guest on suffrance. Soon he. Mart, would take the 
old lady off Willy’s hands and Willy could run with 
his boy and girl friends. 

There was a delicate color on the sunken cheeks 
of the Preceptress, indicative of an excitement that 
was more like exaltation. She was dressed in white ; 
a robe of time worn lace floating about her in 
voluminous folds. The bodice was tight, the sleeves 
were long, the neck was high. Her hair, not strag- 
gling now as it had been two years ago at the first 
reception of the assembly, lay prettily under the 
mantilla, this time of white Spanish lace. A long, 
wadded cloak of heavy, white silk that showed signs 
of unskilful laundering but still was classic in its 
folds, hung about her. The bright eyes looked out 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 195 


from the wizened face and pierced the gloom of the 
night with an almost ethereal radiance. 

Mr. Queen was efficient in assisting. He put Miss 
Chester carefully into her place, and assured himself 
that she had notebook and pencils. She was to 
write up the evening and he was to see that the 
sketch was published — and paid for! Plash lights 
were to be made by the aspirant for photographic 
fame who, thanks to Mr. Manning’s putting him in 
the way of right training, was making good. Mr. 
Queen asked Miss Chester to reserve a place for 
him at her side, then went on with his pleasant task 
of sizing up human nature and the wishes of the 
guests. He and Mart, assisted by Myra and tutored 
by Willy, placed the girl whose ears were covered 
with wads of hair in the sam^ car with the youth of 
the high-waisted coat and the half-shaved, wholly 
pompadoured head. The stenographer who had 
neuritis was with Maude of the wonderful voice, 
wonderful hair, and wonderful soul. Without 
apparent intent the mischief mongers of which, of 
course, there was a sprinkling, were scattered 
throughout the assembly, a leaven, it is true, that 
could have leavened the lump had there not been a 
stronger leaven at work; the leaven of good will. 

Oh! the joy of the spin out into the clear moon- 
light, away from the heat and congestion of the city. 
The excitement of writhing their way up to the 
entrance of the great park with its surging thou- 
sands, its wealth of electric lights, its cool, mysteri- 
ous shadows! 


196 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


The Preceptress was very still. The little affec- 
tations and importances acquired with the years and 
the slipping from high estate, were gone. She 
seemed a wraith, supernal to the light on land or 
sea, or dynamo or moon. Almost with the elasticity 
of a girl she descended from the motor. Her heart 
and eyes took in the beauty of tree and night. As 
the evening went on, she seemed more vital; less a 
wraith than a dryad of the woods playing with the 
children in the kindergarten of the earth. 

After the party had walked about the grounds 
with their surprises of nature and of art, they went 
to the photo-play house. The picture was one 
especially arranged for, by Mr. Manning. It por- 
trayed the growth, from its beginnings, of the near- 
by city and its historic suburbs; its industrial, its 
architectural growth; its institutions. It portrayed 
the site of the park as it had been in its pristine 
beauty; as it had been before wise men saw its 
possibilities as health-giver, physical and moral, to 
the children; and had voiced, through this beautiful 
open space, their belief that to be good there must 
be inhalation of pure air into the lungs; and that 
cities, to be moral and clean of thought, must have 
breathing spaces through park and playground. 

Myra and Mart had taken the Preceptress under 
their wing, and Willy was with Maude. The stenog- 
rapher had joined a group of men he liked. 

The little Preceptress seemed more like a seraph 
now than a dryad. Her face was radiant. Myra and 
Mart exchanged glances. The face was beautiful. 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 197 


Age had fallen from her. She was the personifica- 
tion of joy and rest. 

“To have lived to see life open so beautifully to 
the children,” she said, “the children — ” Her voice 
trailed away into the shadows and the lights about 
her. “The children — so beautifully to the children.” 

She was very attentive to the explanations of the 
film upon the screen. She needed no glasses, no, 
she thanked Myra and Mart, she could see quite 
well, surprisingly well. Was this park, once country 
outside the city? Yes, the screen was answering 
her. How far? Were any of the old landmarks left? 

As in answer to her questions, there was shot 
upon the screen a house of early Colonial times with 
long sloping roof. Built, on one side, with special 
reference to protection from the Indians, its archi- 
tecture marked it as belonging to the early days in 
the settlement of the country when Indians threat- 
ened home-fortresses with fire and arrow, and were 
in turn recipients of boiling water and gun shot from 
the overhanging upper story where women, men, 
and children often kept guard. 

The light in the face of the little Preceptress made 
it almost translucent. Her attenuated figure trem- 
bled slightly. She watched the screen intently. 

“This house,” said the screen, “is one of the 
earliest of Colonial times. It belonged to Isaac 
Scranton and is preserved on the grounds of this 
park, on its original foundation, as a memorial. It 
is situated at the right of, and close to, the exit gate.” 

The Preceptress shivered again. The mantilla of 


198 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


Spanish lace grew whiter in the gloom, that during 
the picture had replaced the glare of electricity. 
She drew more closely about her the statuesque 
folds of the white, silken cloak. 

“Are you chilly?'’ questioned Mart. 

“Oh! It is so beautiful!” was the whispered reply. 

“It is just as well the photo-play is almost over. 
It is a bit cool sitting here in the open, even if the 
month is August. That picture is nearly the last 
one.” 

“Have you seen that cottage?” whispered the 
Preceptress. 

“Yes. It is about three hundred feet from the 
cafe pavillion, to the right, in a straight line as you 
pass to the exit. I will show it to you as we leave 
the grounds. Now, Willy is anxious to get his guests 
seated at supper.” 

The picture completed, all thronged to the roomy 
restaurant, a merry crowd. Willy was triumphant. 
His party! Never was such glory! And the supper! 
Everyone was to have just what he wanted. He 
ran from one to another, telling each individual to 
have his think-tank working close up to his appetite, 
so’s no one would go away saying that if he'd thought, 
he’d a had broiled live lobster an’ ice cream, when 
he hadn’t ordered anything but a ham sandwich, 
’cause he didn’t know he could have anything else. 

Mart took the orders, while Myra helped the unin- 
itiated to a choice. Should it be ham and eggs; 
porter-house steak; lobster Newberg; steamed 
clams; any of these; but always, ice cream, Nessel- 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 199 

rode pudding, biscuit glace. “No stuff in cones, 
thank you,” Willy informed the company. “Though 
cones is all right for every day!” 

The orders given to the steward, the seating at 
the tables was a merry task; the eating, a merrier. 

Mart and Myra and Miss Chester and Mr. Queen 
had broiled live lobster; Willy’s father and mother 
had ham and eggs; and this smelled so good that 
Myra and Mart almost regretted their choice and 
thought that, after all, ham and eggs might possess 
value far above broiled lobster. 

The Preceptress did not seem very hungry. 

“Why do you not eat?” asked Myra. “Your 
broiled chicken looks very good.” 

“It is good,” said the little Preceptress, “but I am 
too happy to eat.” 

“We are glad you are happy, but we want you to 
eat as well,” laugh ted Mart. 

Then came a call for a toast from Willy. 

Plis speech was short and characteristic: 

“See if folks can’t pay ’tention to yer, ’cause yer 
does something worth payin’ ’tention to; an’ not 
because yer make yerself a nuisance ; an’ if yer can’t 
always have eats like this w’en yer wants it, play 
yer’ve got ’em!” 

He sat down, flushing with happiness, amid great 
applause. Then Mart was called, then Myra. Myra 
laughed and thanked them, and told them it was 
time to go home, and ^please not to ask her for a 
speech. So in a flutter of merriment they rose to 
go. Mart turned to the chair that held the little 


200 ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 


Preceptress. Had held her! She was not there. 

“Where is the Preceptress?” he asked of those 
about him. She was never known by any other 
name in these latter days. 

No one knew. She had disappeared. 

“I saw her .creep out while Willy was talkin’,” at 
last said a small boy at the further end of the room. 

“Which way did she go?” A strange emotion 
filled Mart’s heart. 

“Out’n the door, toward the exit.” 

“Stay here till we call you, all of you, please. Mr. 
Queen,” aside, “Will you take charge? Willy, come.” 

Myra, Willy, and Mart moved swiftly out of the 
cafe into the moonlight. It was growing late, and 
aside from their party the grounds were almost de- 
serted. With a strong grip upon their hearts, they 
threaded the white way of the moonlight, making 
a short cut, with one accord, from the over-bright- 
ness of the electric lights. “Into the moonlight, in 
search of a moonbeam,” whispered Mart to Myra. 

As they approached the exit from the park, the 
little cottage that had so gripped the attention of 
the Preceptress when she saw it on the screen, 
loomed, lonely, spectral, in the moonlight. It stood 
in high relief, against the background of hemlocks. 
There was something white upon the doorsill. 

“The Preceptress,” whispered Myra to Mart. 

They ran to her. She was lying there in perfect 
peace. Her eyes bright and her face radiant, her 
vision took in every detail of the house of olden time. 

“It is my home,” she whispered. “You have 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 201 

brought me home. I recognized it when I saw it on 
the screen. I wanted to come here alone, children. 
You do not mind? I was born here; I go from here.” 

Her voice failed. Her eyes took in once more the 
expanse of hills and trees, the house with its over- 
hanging upper chambers. 

“Prom the things that are seen to the things that 
are not seen! Mother! And oh! so many children!” 
Her eyes closed. The Vision was hers. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


back to the company, Willy,” said Mart. 

“Ask Mr. Queen to help you get your guests 
home. Say nothing of this to anyone but him till 
you reach Sweet Street. Then tell Mrs. Harndon 
and my father what has taken place.” 

“Where shall we take her?” said Myra softly, her 
tears mingling with those of Willy’s as he hung over 
the little Preceptress he had learned in these last 
days to love. “Where shall we take her?” 

“To my home,” responded Mart, and they stood 
there together in a common experience as Willy sped 
through the shadow to the brilliantly lighted cafe 
beyond. 

So, into Mart’s beautiful home, into an upper 
room, they bore her, wrapped in the silken cloak of 
the long ago; her love for the children she saw in 
the life to come, taking all sadness from the parting. 

It was very still in the house. The butler who 
admitted them stole away, and the moonlight 
flooded the hall from the oriel. Its rays lay in 
tessellations on the floor. 

“While we are waiting for father and mother 
come into my dreamland,” said Mart. 

He led Myra to a large room with great windows 
opening to the landscape of moonlit sky and river 
and wooded hill. Its colorings and furnishings were 
indescribably comforting, more an embodied ideal 
^02 


ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE 203 


than an apartment with pictures, rugs, and chairs. 
There were books — not too many, callings by a fine 
mind of the choice thoughts of the ages. A deep 
sofa of satisfying tones occupied almost the centre 
of the room. Behind it and about it, were placed 
conveniently small tables with books and reading 
lamps. The room was fiooded now with the soft 
light of the coming dawn. Orange and celladon 
yellows played on the waters of the river fiowing 
to the sea. Hill and valley, river and wood, were 
waking to the call of the sun. Birds in the trees 
were chirping to sea gulls, massed in thousands on 
the bosom of the waters. A swan stood, lonely, on a 
bit of land in the water deeps beyond the esplanade. 

Mart drew Myra to one of the six large windows 
that seemed to unite rather than separate the world 
of the masses with the world of the individuals 
standing there. 

“Myra,” he whispered, “you can not gainsay me 
now. Here is the setting your heart saw, months 
ago. Here, the strength of the hills comes to you 
that you may help feed the hungry on the plains. 
Here am I, for whom your heart calls, as mine for 
you. From here together we can help make homes 
for the thousands who need, not only shelter, but 
the spirit of home.” 

“ ‘What ye need, that shall ye pray for as if it 
were yours, and it shall come to you.' ” Myra looked 
at the room, the windows, the great sweep of land- 
scape, and at Mart, 


204 ON THE OTHER SIDE OP THE BRIDGE 


“You see it is your ideal attained, Myra; you see 
it is your dream come true! It is all here: your 

‘Room with six large windows, and a view 

Of field and forest; books a few;’” 

“The world for service; 

Love — and You!” 

Myra completed the quatrain. 

“You have made my world larger, Mart. When I 
first wrote those lines, all I thought I wanted for 
perfect happiness was the light of a single home, 
love of family, and a you. See how my ideals have 
grown. I have emerged from the life where 

‘Soft lights concealed in sconces’ 

give mellow but restricted outlook; into the world 
as you find it; a world for service. There, in greater 
fulness than I had ever dreamed, I find 

‘Love and You.’ ” 

The sun had burst into its full glory, now. The 
wings of the sea gulls shone, glistening white in the 
blaze of its splendor. 

“I will come,” said Myra, softly, “I love you.” 

After a moment, “Life is just as real and vital 
here as over there, dear Mart, but there shadows 
loom larger and blacker, the heart grows weary in 
the darkness. We will go on, you and I, sharing 
our sunshine, helping to dispel the shadows of the 
tired and the brave ones on the other side of the 
bridge.” 



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